C.C. Sabathia is Good At Baseball

Robinson Cano is going to get most of the credit for last night's win. He deserves it to and has had a huge year, helped by a monster second half. However, let's not forget what C.C. Sabathia did to put them in that position to win in the first place. Through seven innings he gave up only two runs, one walk, and struck out 10. That's pretty damn good and I think its time for a C.C. Sabathia appreciation thread.

Sabathia has drawn his share of criticism this year. After the huge contract he got last year, the prized left hander has had to deal with huge expectations. He's come up small in a few big games but all in all, has been the guy the Yankees have been searching for to front their rotation. No he hasn't been what he was for the Brewers and isn't really a Cy Young candidate (somebody needs to tell Michael Kay though) but anybody that honestly expected him to do that every year was hoping for to much.

He's done just about everything that you can hope for a pitcher to do. He's made a ton of innings disappear. With a month to go, he leads the league in innings pitched and is only an inning or two behind Tim Lincecum for tops in all of baseball. The impact of that is just huge. The quality of those innings have also been sterling. He leads the league in wins and, despite playing in a homer friendly park, has a very respectable ERA of 3.56, along with an equally impressive FIP of 3.47. He's seventh in the league in strikeouts, right behind a guy named Roy Halladay. He's also doing that without surrendering to many free passes, ranking 10th in the league in BB/9. His K/BB ratio is tenth in the league. Right behind a guy named Cliff Lee.

Carsten Charles hasn't been quite what he's been the past two or three years. However, he has already been worth more than he will be earning this year according to fangraphs.com. He's also arguably the best pitching in the AL East. Where the Yankees would be without him is not pretty. They'd still be in the middle the playoff race with a bleak outlook for the postseason. Which brings me to my last point. Sabathia has proven himself to be a big game pitcher and as the Yankees cruise into October, I'm eagerly awaiting C.C.'s October debut in pinstripes. We need the big guy and he's been great all year. Let's give him some of the credit he deserves.