Sabathia

The Orioles know that C.C. Sabathia is one of the best pitchers in the game, but they have to be going into Sunday's American League Division Series opener confident given their success against the Yankees left-hander this season. Sabathia is winless in three starts with a 6.38 ERA against the Orioles this season, with Baltimore winning those last two starts. He's allowed at least four runs in each of those outings and hasn't lasted more than 6 1/3 innings in any of those starts.

The Yankees clubhouse was subdued and businesslike after Sunday's dramatic, 7-2, Game 1 ALDS victory, not surprising considering how many big games most of the players have experienced. The Yankees were happy for catcher Russell Martin, who hit the game-winning home run off Orioles closer Jim Johnson after a rough season offensively. "It's awesome," starter C.C. Sabathia said. "He's struggled all year, but his attitude has never changed. He came up with some big hits in September, and that was probably one of the biggest right there.

All it took was four batters to come to the plate and Alex Rodriguez to unleash his first swing for the Orioles to realize that the New York Yankees are suddenly a much different team than they were in early April. They also found out quickly that CC Sabathia was a much different pitcher than he was on Opening Day. In his much-anticipated return to the Yankees' lineup, Rodriguez hit a towering three-run homer on the first pitch he saw. That was much more than Sabathia would need as he dominated the Orioles, pitching a shutout in New York's 4-0 victory in front of an announced 36,926 at Camden Yards.

The Orioles know that C.C. Sabathia is one of the best pitchers in the game, but they have to be going into Sunday's American League Division Series opener confident given their success against the Yankees left-hander this season. Sabathia is winless in three starts with a 6.38 ERA against the Orioles this season, with Baltimore winning those last two starts. He's allowed at least four runs in each of those outings and hasn't lasted more than 6 1/3 innings in any of those starts.

News item: Trade rumors continue to swirl around Cleveland Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia, though general manager Mark Shapiro insists that he wants to re-sign the club's veteran ace. My take: It's OK for Orioles fans to dream, but Sabathia probably isn't going to be wearing Baltimore on his road jersey next year. News item: Big Brown trainer Rick Dutrow, who already had a checkered past, was suspended recently by Kentucky racing officials after one of his other horses tested positive for an excessive amount of Clenbuterol.

Suppose, just for a moment, that Mr. Flip decided his first name should be spelled without the period. Mr Flip? Outrageous. You wouldn't stand for it. But everyone is just going along with a certain major league pitcher whose given name is Carsten Charles Sabathia and wants from now on to be known as "CC" with no periods. No more "C.C." Take a stand, American sports fan. Don't let this madness take hold. We have a long, honorable history of initials with periods in sports. B.J. and J.R. and J.J. and A.J. and O.J. (All right, mostly honorable.

It looks as if the next time C.C. Sabathia takes the mound, he will be wearing a Milwaukee Brewers jersey. The Brewers and the Cleveland Indians agreed in principle to a deal for the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner yesterday, sources told ESPN The Magazine. The deal is contingent on paperwork being finished and the exchange of medical records. The trade was first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In a text message to ESPN.com, Sabathia all but confirmed the deal.

Let me stipulate first that CC Sabathia ranks among the greatest wonders of the baseball world. For a man that size to maintain a consistent delivery over huge amounts of innings, he has to be a tremendous athlete. If I wanted to win a pennant next year and I could pick any pitcher in the world, I would take him second, behind Johan Santana. But that's not the question before us. Both Sabathia and Mark Teixeira will probably sign deals of at least six years this offseason for annual salaries of more than $20 million.

CLEVELAND - Playing the Seattle Mariners during their historic 116-win season has been compared to many things, all excruciating. Yesterday before 45,069 at roiling Jacobs Field, the Cleveland Indians handed the ball to a 21-year-old left-handed pitcher, held their breath and watched C. C. Sabathia emerge from the experience comparing it to child's play. If ever a team has won a more significant game more easily than the Indians' 17-2 beating of the Mariners, neither Sabathia nor anyone else in the Indians' clubhouse was aware of it. The result is this afternoon's Game 4 for a Mariners team that spent much of the season cruising.

They looked overmatched against C.C. Sabathia's fastball, did little against his off-speed pitches, and when it was over last night, Rodrigo Lopez's quality start having been wasted, the Orioles were again left grasping. This time, it was for positives. At least they hadn't lost any ground in the standings. On a night the Orioles put virtually nothing but zeroes on the scoreboard, that counted for something. Sabathia, his hat cocked to the side and his 6-foot-7, 290-pound frame commanding the pitcher's mound, delivered a dominating performance, shutting down the Orioles in the Indians' 3-1 victory before 26,407 at Camden Yards.

The tarp is on the infield here at Camden Yards as a line of storms passes through downtown Baltimore. It appears that the worst of the bad weather has come through the city. The Orioles will face Yankees ace CC Sabathia today, and manager Buck Showalter's starting lineup offers a few tweaks from the one we're used to seeing against left-handed pitching. Among the changes, Steve Tolleson will hit eighth as the starting DH, the first time he's been in the starting lineup since he was recalled from Triple-A Norfolk on Sept.

Saturday's drama between the Orioles and New York Yankees peaked in the late innings, when the Bronx Bombers completed a home-run cycle, witnessed their superstar make more baseball history and then watched as one of their hottest players got drilled in the back with a pitch after homering twice. The game itself, though, was basically over after 10 pitches. Paced by another gem from ace CC Sabathia, the Yankees embarrassed the Orioles 15-3 on Saturday night in front of an announced crowd of 39,054, the majority of which was wearing pinstripes and chanting, "Let's Go Yankees.

Yankees left-hander CC Sabathia will undergo arthroscopic surgery at a New York hospital Friday to correct a small meniscus tear in his right knee. Sabathia is scheduled to begin his regular routine in preparation for spring training three to six weeks after the surgery. In the meantime, manager Joe Girardi reportedly has begun to talk with the Yankees about the parameters of a new three-year contract for between $9 million and $10 million. And the Yankees declined to pick up the options of Lance Berkman ($15 million)

NEW YORK — This is a new situation for most of the Rangers and all of their fans, so it seems right to offer a little help in their quest to finish off the Yankees. Take no comfort — repeat, no comfort — in the fact Mr. Clifton Phifer Lee is set to pitch Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, if one is necessary. This cannot be stressed too much. Take no comfort — repeat, absolutely zero comfort, and maybe less — that Cliff Lee is waiting for a seventh game.

NEW YORK — The Yankees have the right guy going to the mound. No question about that. But did CC Sabathia learn anything watching Josh Beckett? More to the point, can he become Josh Beckett? The Yankees aren't quite to the point where they need outright miracles, but after suffering a third straight pounding at the hands of the white-hot Rangers, they do need Sabathia to work magic in Game 5. Nothing is tougher for a baseball team that is trying to do something unprecedented or unexpected than to get its fourth victory in a playoff series.

The first indicator that it might not be Jeremy Guthrie's night came on his first pitch, a fastball that drilled Derek Jeter in the left elbow and gave New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi another opportunity to gripe about the Orioles starter's propensity to hit his batters. Guthrie said he wanted the pitch to be inside, but not far enough inside that it would put Jeter on first base. But not many of the 108 pitches that Guthrie threw Saturday night wound up where he wanted them.

Connie Mack was supposed to have said that pitching is 90 percent of baseball. Although much has changed about the game since Mack managed wearing a starched collar and tie, that verity stands as immutable as one-two-three-strikes-yer-out. If you have to count on either good pitching or good hitting, the smart money is on the arms, not the lumber. The world champion Phillies might be remembered as a having a lineup full of boppers, but when they rushed through the playoffs with an 11-3 record, it was because the Phils' pitching sparkled in the postseason with a 3.08 ERA (2.86 in the World Series)

2992 Last night: Went 2-for-4 vs. Indians with two singles Tonight: 7:35, vs. Indians (Sabathia 5-4)

The old Orioles would have been the perfect opposition for CC Sabathia on what was supposed to be his big night. The New York Yankees' ace was bidding to win his 20th game for the first time in his career. He was trying to extend his unbeaten streak at Yankee Stadium to 22 games, which would have been the longest such streak in Yankees history. The new Orioles had no interest in watching him do either, and they knocked around Sabathia, who had lost to them just one other time in 19 career starts.

The New York Yankees officially said goodbye to Camden Yards for another baseball season but not before providing one more display of dominance over an Orioles team whose annual late-season freefall is at full throttle. In an unsightly top of the ninth inning for the home team that could serve as a microcosm for the Orioles' season series against their American League East rivals, the Yankees turned a one-run game into a rout by scoring seven times. It got so bad that even the Yankees fans, who made up most of half-empty Camden Yards on Wednesday night, started to file out of the ballpark early.