If you live in the metropolitan area you’ve seen the commercial hundreds of times. Two car rental agents sit around the break room talking about the prior night’s New York Yankees game. One refers to it as “Total domination”.
You can bet today there are plenty of workers sitting around their break room, standing by the vending machines or watercoolers, discussing last night’s Yankees game and using the phrase “Total dimination” with regularity.
That’s because last night CC Sabathia was about as good as you can be without throwing a perfect game. Granted, his opponent was the hapless Seattle Mariners, but that doesn’t make 27 up and 27 down any easier to do. From the 1st inning on though it appeared Sabathia might just have a date with “baseball immortality” as Yankees’ radio man John Sterling likes to put it.
Sabathia breezed through the first three innings and then the Mariners bats made a breeze as Sabathia struck out the side in the 4th and 5th innings. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans and you could tell by the 5th that a rain delay was imminent.
Lightning lit up the sky and it began to drizzle as the Mariners came to bat in the 6th inning. This was no Roy Hobbes story though. Sabathia struck out Mike Carp, for his seventh straight K, to start the frame. But then the skies opened up and rain came down in sheets. A 31 minute delay interrupted what appeared to be destiny calling.
There was no question Sabathia would come out after the relatively short delay. He kept loose throwing underneath the stands and re-took the mound to face rookie Greg Halman. Sabathia retired him…but on a pop up. Suddenly contact was made. The next batter, Chone Figgins, grounded out to Derek Jeter to end the inning.
18 up, 18 down, but Sabathia’s location was a little off and bat was meeting ball. Sabathia struck out Ichiro to start the 7th, but quickly fell behind 2-0 to Brendan Ryan and then let a 94 mph fastball get too much of the plate. Ryan slapped it in to left-center field for the Mariners first and only hit of the night. Sabathia bounced right back and blew away Dustin Ackley and Miguel Olivo for his 13th and 14th strikeouts (a new personal high) on the night.
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