Happy Birthday To The Big Fella

Carsten Charles Sabathia turns 31 today.  And he does it with 171 career wins.  To put that into perspective, here's a little tidbit on that achievement, compliments of LoHud:

According to Elias, the last pitchers with at least 170 wins before turning 31 are currently in the Hall of Fame: [Catfish] Hunter, Bob Feller, Hal Newhouser, Robin Roberts, Don Drysdale, Juan Marichal, Ferguson Jenkins and Jim Palmer.

Not bad company to be amongst, huh?  In addition to his birthday, CC also takes the mound tonight looking to lock up a series win for the team and his 15th personal win on the year against James Shields.  It's a fair statement to say that CC has been one of the 3 best pitchers in baseball this season, and it's not a stretch to say he's been the best since about mid-May.  What better way to cap off the last 8 weeks with a birthday victory, right?

So break out your parachute pants and hit the music to celebrate.  It's CC Time, baby!

Freddy Comes Up Big Again

I'm past the point of trying to figure out how he does it.  I'm just going to go ahead and say that Freddy Garcia has done an outstanding job this year for the Yankees, and last night was arguably his best outing of the season.  He was much sharper than in his first start back after the long layoff, and it should in his results:

6.2 IP, 8 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K, 92 Pitches (66 strikes)

He threw first-pitch strikes to 23 of the 29 batters he faced.  He got 13 swinging strikes (14.13%).  And he basically kept the Tampa batters off balance all night with his selection of offspeed garbage, bearing down and getting big outs when he had to with runners on base.

Garcia has now pitched 103.2 innings for the Yankees this year.  He has 8 wins, and 12 quality starts out of the 17 he's made.  He sports a 3.21 ERA and a 3.74 FIP, both far better than what his ZiPS projections were before the season (4.83/4.58).  Freddy's 1.7 WAR is the 3rd highest total amongst Yankee pitchers this season, just behind Bartolo Colon and much higher than what A.J. Burnett and Ivan Nova have done over a similar innings count.  Cash should be walking into Hank's office every day and putting clippings of Freddy's outings and printouts of his stats on his desk.  Maybe throw a few of Soriano's shitty numbers in there too, just to rub salt in the wound.

It isn't always pretty.  He isn't going to wow you with anything.  But Freddy Garcia is a professional pitcher who knows how to get the job done, and he's been reliable almost every time he's stepped out there.  He isn't flashy, but he knows how to get outs, and grinds his way through it.  Freddy Garcia is The Garbage Man.

(Another great Photoshop performance by Swanny Duckson)