CHICAGO — At sold-out Wrigley Field, in front of a national TV audience, the biggest player stood naked in the middle of the baseball shrine.
No, CC Sabathia’s massive body wasn’t exposed to the masses. But he was without more than one of the bullets in his arsenal.
“I couldn’t throw the ball in to save my life, the change-up was up and my two-seamer was terrible,” Sabathia said of the early portion of last night’s game against the Cubs. “You have to find a way to keep it close and these guys will score some runs.”
Eventually, Sabathia smothered the Cubs, and he was right about the Yankees lineup lending support: Nick Swisher crushed a three-run homer in the eighth inning that snapped a tie and the Yankees tacked on three more runs in the ninth on the way to a 10-4 victory in front of 41,828.
The Yankees’ eighth win in 11 games kept them 11/2 games behind the AL East-leading Red Sox. They are 5-1 since Derek Jeter went on the disabled list six hits shy of 3,000.
Swisher, who started the night hitting .170 (9-for-53) with runners in scoring position, also drove in Alex Rodriguez from second base in the fourth inning and finished with four RBIs.
Sabathia (9-4) won for the sixth time in his last seven decisions. In seven innings, Sabathia allowed four runs on eight hits, walked one and struck out four. After a shaky first five innings, Sabathia retired the final eight hitters he faced and was replaced by David Robertson.
Brett Gardner homered leading off the game and went 3-for-5. Rodriguez, who shot down a report that he could have a strained left shoulder, went 3-for-4 and drove in a run.
Cubs manager Mike Quade made two questionable moves in Saturday’s loss and pushed the wrong button again in the eighth inning last night when he summoned right-hander Chris Carpenter to face the switch-hitting Swisher with two on and no out in a 4-4 game. That turned Swisher around to bat from the left side, where he quickly got ahead in the count.
“At 2-0, I was looking fastball,” Swisher said. “He was throwing super hard. If he throws a slider, you tip your hat to him.”
The only tip of the hat Swisher made was toward Sabathia, who gave up a three-run homer to former Yankee Alfonso Soriano in the third inning. That swat put the Yankees in a 4-1 ditch, but Sabathia allowed nothing after that.
“CC kept us in the game and that’s what you have come to expect,” Swisher said of the Yankees’ ace.
In the first inning, Sabathia gave up a leadoff double to Reed Johnson, who later scored. That was the initial sign of trouble.
Two innings later, Soriano, who was 12-for-36 (.333) against Sabathia, crushed a 1-1 pitch into the left-field bleachers.
“He didn’t have his best stuff and he would be the first one to admit it,” Rodriguez said of Sabathia’s first few frames. “After the homer CC tightened up things a bit.”
Still, without Swisher’s homer, Sabathia would not have gotten the win.
“With this offense you always have a chance to win,” Sabathia said.
Even when you put your mates in an early hole.
george.king@nypost.com
