New York Yankees: CC Sabathia cleared to resume baseball activities
By Paul Ashley
The New York Yankees received a scare when one of their starting pitchers underwent an angioplasty last month, but the team was able to recently provide a positive update on his status.
According to the New York Yankees on Twitter, left-handed starting pitcher CC Sabathia underwent a scheduled stress-test and he has been cleared to resume baseball activities. This is great news for the Yankees starting rotation, but it is even better news for Sabathia as he will now be on track to open the season as a healthy member of the roster.
The upcoming regular season will be the final season for the 38-year-old left-handed starter. After being drafted by the Cleveland Indians as the 20th pick in the 1st round of the 1998 first-year player draft out of high-school, Sabathia has gone on to win 246 games in the regular season and 10 games in the postseason.
Throughout his 18-year career, Sabathia has earned six All-Star appearances, a Cy Young award, an AL ALCS MVP award, and a World Series Championship. During this time, he has put together an impressive 3.70 ERA, a 3.72 FIP, and a 1.254 WHIP alongside an incredible 2,986 strikeouts.
If Sabathia is able to replicate his 2018 regular season in which he compiled a 9-7 win-loss record, a 3.65 ERA, a 4.16 FIP, and a 1.314 WHIP through 153.0 innings of work (29 starts), he will further pad his Hall of Fame worthy resume. However, even if he does not make the same amount of starts as he did last season, the possibility of additional postseason innings could potentially make a larger impact on his career resume over additional regular season innings.
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Although Sabathia is on track to be healthy to start next season, he will be suspended for the first five games of the upcoming season. In the infamous start that initially caused him to miss out on a $500,000 bonus that kicked in with 155.0 innings pitched, Sabathia was ejected after he hit Jesus Sucre of the Tampa Bay Rays with a likely retaliation pitch. The team quietly provided the bonus in good faith at a later time as the veteran could have completed two more innings had he not been ejected from the game.
Due to the suspension, he will be eligible to rejoin the Bronx Bombers on April 3rd against the Detroit Tigers. However, as the Yankees have an off-day following their first game of the season on March 28th, Sabathia was unlikely to be needed in the starting rotation until April 3rd anyway. Also, as the team still has Sonny Gray on its roster, manager Aaron Boone may prefer to start the season with a six-man rotation in order to limit the workload of the entire starting rotation.
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This will be an exciting farewell season for Sabathia as both he and the Yankees have their sights set on reaching the World Series for the first time since his first season in the Bronx. Sabathia having the opportunity to pitch the final game of his career in the Fall Classic would be quite the story book ending of an illustrious career.