CC Flops in Yankees Debut

photo courtesy of Getty Images

This is my recap for Baseball Digest of today's fiasco in Baltimore.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
NY Yankees	0	0	1	0	0	2	2	0	0		5	11	0
Baltimore	0	0	3	0	3	0	0	4	X		10	14	0

WP - Guthrie, Bal (1-0) LP - Sabathia, NYY (0-1)
HR - Posada (1), Matsui (1), NYY, Izturis (1), Bal

CC Sabathia had a disasterous debut in pinstripes and the Baltimore Orioles embarrassed the Yankees 10-5 in front of a packed house in Orioles Park at Camden Yards. Sabathia couldn't locate his fastball and missed the strike zone all afternoon. He was charged with 6 earned runs in 4.1 innings pitched. He didn't strike out a batter and he walked 5 Orioles. To possibly make matters worse, television cameras showed him putting a heat pack on his rib cage between innings.

When asked about it during his post-game press conference, manager Joe Girardi said that Sabathia felt fine physically and it was "just one of those days".

Sabathia told reporters he was "just trying to stay warm", and that he was deeply disappointed by his performance.

Sabathia managed to get out of a jam in the first inning and was handed a 1-0 lead in the second on Johnny Damon's sacrifice fly. But after retiring the side in order in the second inning, it was all downhill for the big left-hander. Adam Jones' 2-run triple put the Orioles ahead for good and he later scored on Nick Markakis' sacrifice fly for a 3-1 Orioles lead.

After the Yankees stranded runners at the corners in the top of the fifth, the Orioles extended their lead in the home half of the inning. Brian Roberts led off with a ground-rule double and Jones followed with an infield single to put runners on the corners with no one out. With Jones running, Markakis hit a soft bouncer to the left side that Derek Jeter fielded, but couldn't make a play on. Melvin Mora reached on an infield single that was misplayed by Cody Ransom to load the bases.

Aubrey Huff's soft grounder resulted in a force out and another run crossed home plate for a 5-1 lead. After an intentional walk to Ty Wiggington, Sabathia walked Luke Scott, after being ahead 0-2, to force in a sixth run. It was the 96th and last pitch for Sabathia, who the Yankees hope doesn't have a repeat of the awful April (1-4, 7.76) he had with Cleveland last year.

The Yankees rallied behind home runs from Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui, and were down 6-5 in the eighth inning. Nick Swisher led off with a pinch-hit double and moved to third on Brett Gardner's sacrifice bunt. But with the infield playing in, reliever Jim Johnson got Jeter to bounce to shortstop Cesar Izturis for the second out, and after a walk to Damon, he retired Mark Teixeira on an inning ending ground out.

The Orioles then put the game away in the eighth, scoring fours runs off of Phil Coke and Brian Bruney. Izturis hit a controversial 2-run home run off Coke to match his home run total for all of last season. Damon leapt up and appeared to have a chance to catch the ball, but a fan knocked Damon's glove aside. No replay was called for.

Game Notes

Maryland native Teixeira was loudly booed by the Orioles faithful, who had hoped that the first baseman would have signed a free agent contract with Baltimore this past off-season.

After an off day on Tuesday, the series resumes Wednesday night (7:05 pm EDT) with Chien-Ming Wang facing rookie Koji Uehara.