Short rest no problem for Sabathia

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Yankee ace CC Sabathia, who will start Game 4 Tuesday night on short rest, is comfortable coming back with just three days off. But he said there are some adjustments that have to be made.

‘You know that going on certain rest that you’re not going to have your best fastball,’ he said. ‘So you’ve just got to stay under control and make sure your delivery is good and make sure I go out there and throw strikes.’

Sabathia pitched several times on three days rest in September 2008, and pitched well, carrying the Milwaukee Brewers to the playoffs. Once there, however, he was used on three days rest again and the Philadelphia Phillies battered him. This year he was given additional rest late in the season; he said he felt fine after playing catch Sunday.

‘It was very important for us to try to slow him down in the month of September because we knew that his workload could be heavy in October and November,’ said Yankee Manager Joe Girardi, who would use Sabathia again in Game 7 of the ALCS, if the series goes that far. ‘He had a long rest in between his Game 1 start [in the division series] and Game 1 against the Angels. So we feel he’s rested and more than capable of doing this.

‘We’ll just watch him carefully and make sure that location is there and physically he feels fine and doesn’t have any real long innings.’

Sabathia threw 113 pitches in Game 1, when he held the Angels to a run on four hits in eight innings, and Girardi said he wouldn’t hesitate to let him throw that many again Tuesday ‘if that’s what it took.’

-- Kevin Baxter