Yankees CC Sabathia Continues to Defy Odds

Most baseball pundits would never have thought that CC Sabathia would have the lowest ERA on the New York Yankees starting rotation after 60 games of the regular season.

Not only does the veteran southpaw have his team’s best ERA, but also he has baseball’s lowest ERA since May 1.

Ten weeks have been played in the 2016 MLB regular season and the best starting pitcher for the Yankees is Sabathia.

It might not be that much of a surprise, if not for the prior two seasons, as he spent a great deal of those two on the disabled list with problems with his knees that was diagnosed as basically incurable.

He also started last offseason in a rehab center for alcohol and less than a month from now, he will be 36 years old.

His fastball used to clock 97 mph, but is now just 89 and he was required to win a spot in the starting rotation during spring training as nothing was given to the former Cy Young Award winner.

When adding up all of those things it makes the excellent performance of Sabathia during the first 60 games of this season that much more remarkable.

The left-hander is playing much better and so are the rest of his Yankees teammates. The team has won five straight and is back over the .500 mark for only the first time since mid April.

That came thanks to Sabathia’s seven innings of scoreless pitching on Friday against Detroit in a 4-0 win in the Bronx.

Joe Girardi the New York manager said Sabathia’s game Friday was another brilliant outing. Girardi was one of very few who truly believed in Sabathia and why he picked the veteran over right-hander Ivan Nova whose spring training was much better than Sabathia’s.

Sabathia’s numbers have been quite remarkable considering what he has to work with. His win on Friday was his fourth, but he did not reach that number a season ago until July 8. His ERA this season is just 2.28, which is the lowest of the five starters on the Yankees.

The ERA is half a run lower than that of Masahiro Tanaka the club’s nominal ace, over two runs lower than Nathan Eovaldi or Nova and four runs better than that of Michael Pineda.

However, the really big stat for Sabathia is that in his six starts dating back to May 4, he has an ERA of just 0.71, which is the lowest of any Major League Baseball starting pitcher.

It is even lower than the 0.81 of Clayton Kershaw over the same time.