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Pastimes : Major League Baseball (MLB) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JakeStraw who wrote (17005)	10/5/2011 10:11:48 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29239

Sabathia’s Future a Question bats.blogs.nytimes.com DETROIT — C. C. Sabathia has been a boon to the Yankees since he arrived in New York, going 59-23 with a 3.18 earned run average in three seasons, and leading the team, both on and off the field. In 2009, he repaid his huge contract by leading the Yankees all the way to a World Series championship. Sabathia says he loves pitching for the Yankees, but there is a small chance he threw his last pitch for them Monday night. In Game 3 of this American League division series, he started as the Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 5-4, leaving them on the verge of elimination heading into Game 4 on Tuesday night. Sabathia can opt out of his seven-year, $161 million contract after the season and become a free agent. Most players who have those options in their contracts tend to exercise them. That does not necessarily mean they want to leave, though. Sometimes, as in the case of Alex Rodriguez in 2007, opt-outs are used as a way to secure a longer, more lucrative contract with the same team. Sabathia, for his part, has expressed only happiness during his time in New York. As recently as Sunday, he said there was no better place to play. “It’s the Bronx,” he said. “It’s the Yankees, with all the history and tradition. It’s just unbelievable, especially around this time. I always will say this is the best place to play.” Those are encouraging words for the Yankees. But the front office will still have to assess how much more of a commitment it is willing to make to Sabathia, who has four years and $92 million on his current contract. Sabathia turned 31 on July 21, and although he has been a durable and dogged pitcher since he arrived, there were signs that fatigue might have caused a downturn in his effectiveness in the second half of the season. The Yankees need to determine if that is the beginning of a trend, or an anomaly. In the first half of the season, Sabathia was 13-4 with a 2.72 earned run average, and was possibly on his way to the Cy Young Award. But in the second half of the season he slowed, going only 6-4 with a 3.44 E.R.A. Always willing to throw deep into games, Sabathia finished fourth in innings pitched with 2371/3. Perhaps all those pitches took their toll as the season wound down. In Game 3 on Monday, Sabathia struggled with the strike zone, which the Yankees felt was abnormally small, and battled his command all game. “He hasn’t thrown the ball bad,” Manager Joe Girardi said of Sabathia’s last two months of the season. “He set such a high expectation when he was on that roll. Probably impossible to keep that up or he probably would have won 25 games. Teams have made him work a little bit more, and maybe he hasn’t been quite as sharp.” Whatever turning point there may have been from Sabathia’s dominant first half to his merely good second half might have come July 26 against the Seattle Mariners. That was when Sabathia was working on a perfect game and came back after two short rain delays, one 30 minutes, the other 14. Sabathia ultimately allowed only one hit and one run in seven innings and struck out 14. Since that game, however, his numbers went into a steeper decline. In 10 starts since that soggy night, Sabathia went 4-3 with a 4.06 E.R.A. There was also the issue of the six-man rotation. Sabathia likes to pitch every five days, but was unable to do so for most of August and September. But Girardi felt any connection between his small downturn and the expanded rotation did not affect Sabathia. In fact, Girardi felt it helped him. “With the innings that he logged, yeah, I think he did,” Girardi said.

To: JakeStraw who wrote (17005)	10/5/2011 3:38:30 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 29239

Tigers Take the Tough Road bats.blogs.nytimes.com By JOANNE C. GERSTNER October 5, 2011, 12:43 pm DETROIT – It could have been neat and simple for the Detroit Tigers. Win Tuesday’s Game 4, against the Yankees at Comerica Park, and their American League division series is clinched. But the plans for a celebration at home blew up in spectacular fashion, as the Yankees pounded the Tigers, 10-1, and forced a decisive Game 5 at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. The Tigers now face a situation they hoped to avoid, taking on the Yankees and a hostile crowd on the road with no margin for error. Or, as Tigers designated hitter Victor Martinez put it, “We seem to have to do things the hard way, a lot.” The Tigers didn’t seem down or rattled after the lopsided loss, which was awful enough to turn the enthusiastic Comerica Park crowd into boobirds by the end. Much like the 9-3 drubbing in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium, the Tigers are ready to turn the page. “This won’t be in our minds at all. Why should it be?” Tigers infielder Brandon Inge said. “It’s just one game, we lost, it’s not a big deal. We’re moving on to the opportunity before us in Game 5. We’re as confident now as we’ve always been.” The Tigers have shown a knack for resilience this season, remaining on an even keel through wins and losses. Manager Jim Leyland maintains a relaxed vibe and the rest of the team seem not to stress out too much either. “It doesn’t surprise me that the series is going to five games,” Leyland said. “That doesn’t surprise me at all.” Leyland’s players agreed, declaring their confidence in the Tigers’ ability to thrive under pressure. “We’ve been doing it all season,” Martinez said. “We have a great confidence, a great group here where everybody does a little bit –- that’s why we’re here. Our confidence is good. We’re going to go out there, show up, play hard and see what happens. “Winning, winning, winning — that’s our mindset.” Tigers starter Rick Porcello, who took the loss in Game 4, added: “Now it comes down to one game for us to stay alive, we’re going to leave it all out on the field. That’s what we’ve been doing all year, we’re not going to change now. We’ll be ready.” The Tigers will start Doug Fister for the second time in the series. Fister pitched in the restart of the suspended Game 1, taking over the second inning. Fister took the loss, allowing six earned runs and seven hits over 4.2 innings of work, and was tagged with an 11.57 E.R.A. It was unusual to see Fister hit that hard, as he’s had a 2.83 E.R.A. this season built upon a reputation of having strong control. He admitted he was a bit nervous the first time against the Yankees, but feels the experience prepared him for starting Game 5. “It’s just like any other five-day start,” Fister said. “You’ve got five days to think about another team, all the hitters in there, but it will be O.K. Obviously, everybody wants to be in that position, to be in a game like this. It’s what you dream of as a little kid. But at the same time, you’ve got to kind of keep it in perspective, it’s another ballgame, it’s one pitch at a time.” Fister’s teammates still have faith in him too, despite his first rocky outing. They see the Game 1 loss as a singular event, and not a foreshadowing of Game 5. “We have faith in all of our starters, they do a great job and we know that, it has been true all season for us,” Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera said. “Fister is good…. We now have one shot, and we all have to play our best. We know what we need to do. And they do too.”