BOSTON — Small beads of sweat formed on CC Sabathia’s big body while he stood outside the Yankees’ clubhouse early last night.
Minutes before, the Red Sox had completed a 10-4 shellacking of the Yankees and moved back into a tie with their blood rivals for first place in the AL East. It also ended the Yankees’ season-high eight-game winning streak.
The Red Sox beat the Yankees’ ace for the fourth time this season. So, with the Red Sox and Yankees seemingly on a postseason collision course, Sabathia was asked about his 0-4 ledger and 7.20 ERA this season against Boston.
“When I am right, I can beat anybody,” Sabathia said. “It’s one of those things.”
Sabathia (16-6) has been right against almost every team but the Red Sox. Yesterday, the fastball pushed the speed guns into the mid-90s, but it wasn’t going where Sabathia wanted.
“Fastball command was the key,” said Sabathia, who gave up seven runs and nine hits in six innings. “I got into bad counts and missed locations.”
In addition to the four losses, Sabathia’s other digits against the Red Sox aren’t good. In 25 innings, he has put 43 runners on base — 33 hits and 10 walks.
Sabathia said he is not concerned about his struggles against the Red Sox and pitching coach Larry Rothschild is not panicking either.
“I don’t know if he doesn’t pitch against them three more times it doesn’t even out,” Rothschild said.
When the Yankees crawled out of a 2-0 hole by scoring two runs against John Lackey (10-8) in the fourth it provided Sabathia a chance to take charge of the game.
Instead, Kevin Youkilis opened the bottom half with a double that ignited a five-run inning that included Jacoby Ellsbury’s three-run homer to right.
“That was the one that hurt us,” manager Joe Girardi said. “We got two runs off Lackey and they dropped a crooked number on us.”
Ellsbury, who drove in Boston’s first run in the third with a sacrifice fly, added a two-run single in the eighth against Hector Noesi and finished with six RBIs.
The Yankees’ attack began with of two runs in the fourth, when they loaded the bases with no outs and watched Nick Swisher’s hard-hit grounder start a 4-6-3 double play that scored Curtis Granderson before Eric Chavez’ two-out, RBI single. Derek Jeter added an RBI single in the fifth and Teixeira slugged his 32nd homer in the eighth.
Because Sabathia, the AL Pitcher of the Month in July, has dominated for so long, there wasn’t a sense of dread in the Yankees’ clubhouse.
“He is human — that’s baseball,” Granderson said. “He doesn’t have a zero ERA.”
Teixeira preferred to acknowledge the Red Sox have good hitters.
“You got to give them credit,” he said. “CC’s been amazing and give them credit for swinging the bats really well against him.”
Because the Yankees and Red Sox are going to make the postseason barring historical collapses, many believe the blood rivals will meet in the ALCS with a trip to the World Series on the line.
Many Yankees fans already are sweating who starts Game 2 of the first round. Now self-loathing Yankee fans have something else to churn their stomachs: The Game 1 starter is 0-4 against the Red Sox.
george.king@nypost.com
