McCarron: What's up with the heating pad?

It seems like we're going to have to deal with this stuff until Saturday, or whenever CC has his first effective start, so we'd better get used to it.

From Anthony McCarron:

The Yankees insist CC Sabathia is healthy, but the heating pad, a dip in velocity and his awful results on Opening Day are causing some knowledgeable baseball observers to wonder what was happening when the lefty got rocked by the Orioles.

"When I'm watching him pitch and see the heat pad and then see him throwing 88-89 (miles per hour), it's almost like he's protecting something and pitching at 70%," said ex-catcher John Flaherty, who played in the majors for 14 seasons and is now a YES Network analyst. "But everybody says he's feeling fine, so obviously that wasn't the issue."

Still, Flaherty thought it odd "to see a day when (Sabathia) can't control his fastball and his velocity is down. When I've seen guys amped up, they're throwing gas and they're all over the place. But it was like he never really got going."

Sabathia has had two abdominal strains, both serious enough to warrant time on the disabled list, so he was using the heating pad as a preventative measure, Brian Cashman said. With Cleveland, Sabathia was on the disabled list with a right oblique strain from March 25-April 15, 2005 and again from April 3-May 2, 2006 with the same injury.

"I can understand why people would ask the question," Cashman said. "But he has a history of early oblique strains and it (the heating pad) is a preventative thing, nothing more than that. It's a program they developed to combat that.

"I can honestly tell you there is nothing bothering him, other than maybe the way he pitched. There is no health issue that we're hiding. If there was something that was troublesome, we'd do something about it tucked away where no one would see anything. He wouldn't be doing it in the dugout."

Cashman said Sabathia will make his next start, scheduled for Saturday in Kansas City.

Will Carroll, who writes extensively about injuries for Baseball Prospectus, checked the data for Sabathia's start and noted that his release point was consistent early but fluctuated later. Carroll called that a "possible indication" of either fatigue or tightness, although there may be other explanations, as well.

"The fact that Sabathia didn't have any strikeouts indicates to me he felt Opening Day tension and was gripping the ball tighter than he usually would,"(Jim) Kaat said. "One at-bat I scratched my head on was when he threw five straight breaking balls to Luke Scott and walked him."

Kaat said he believed Sabathia should have more confidence in his fastball, especially because Scott has less experience than other hitters in Baltimore's lineup.

"If his arm slot wasn't consistent, it could be something is bothering him. Or fatigue.

"Maybe," Kaat added, "there is a physical issue that we don't know about. I guess the only way we'll know is in his next start."

McCarron should p[probably have also pointed out that CC was hitting 92-93 mph on the gun during the game too. Maybe his lack of command caused him to take a bit off the fastball so he could locate it better? Who knows. Either way, I just think you can chalk up Monday's loss to the fact that he didn't have any command of his fastball, end of story.

As for his health, for now I'm going to take CC's and Cashman's word on this one and believe he's fine. He didn't look like he was in pain on the mound or in the dugout, and it makes sense that he would try to keep his oblique area loose considering he's strained the muscle twice.