CC Sabathia has one heck of a scouting report on the Red Sox. The creator of that report goes by the name CC Sabathia and the pages are available only to him, in his mind.
“I really just like to go off my own knowledge,” Sabathia said before the Yankees’ ugly 16-1 loss to the Red Sox in Game 3 Monday night. “I know everybody is different, but I know these guys, and I’ve faced them so much. I don’t think anything in the scouting report is going to tell me anything I don’t know about these guys.”
The 38-year-old lefty, who is scheduled to face the Red Sox in Game 4 of the ALDS on Tuesday in a must-win game for the Yankees, says he doesn’t even bother watching video.
Considering the opponent, Sabathia’s 1-0 record with a 4.50 ERA in three starts against Boston this season can be considered a job well done. The Yankees might need something a tad better — fewer than three runs over six innings — when he heads to the mound with the Yankees’ season on the line.
“It’s a good lineup — bad lineup for me in the fact they take a lot of pitches,” Sabathia said. “They are patient and do a good job of working the count.”
Nothing quite says postseason baseball in the Bronx like Sabathia taking the ball for the Yankees. Manager Aaron Boone’s other option would have been J.A. Happ on short rest, following the lefty’s abbreviated start in Game 1 at Fenway Park.
“We feel like CC physically is in a good place right now coming off a really good start at the end of the year,” Boone said. “I feel like his knee is in a good place, and he’s been pretty good when we’ve been able to give him that rest.”
The Yankees could turn to Happ in long relief if Sabathia is knocked out early. But the Yankees also have little reason to believe Sabathia, who went 9-7 with a 3.65 ERA in 29 appearances this season, won’t succeed.
Tuesday will be Sabathia’s 24th career postseason appearance, with the Indians, Brewers and Yankees. Overall, he is 10-6 with a 4.20 ERA in the postseason.
“I think it helps just to have an experience being out there,” Sabathia said. “I can slow the game down. It’s all the same now. No game is bigger than the other, so I think it helps in that way and I’ve been in those situations a lot.”
