Sabathia Wins His 15th as Yankees Add to Their Lead KANSAS CITY, Mo. ? C. C. Sabathia started drinking water before the Yankees? game Wednesday in steamy Texas, downed several cups on the team plane, and in his hotel room on Thursday he mixed in some Gatorade. He did not know precisely how much liquid he had consumed ? enough, he guessed, to keep a man listed at 6-feet-7 and a generous 290 pounds hydrated on a hot night. ?I?m worn down now, obviously,? Sabathia said. ?But during the game, you?ve got to put that out of your mind.? The heat index at Kauffman Stadium was 106 degrees when the first pitch was thrown, but Sabathia played it cool, as always. Chugging a cup of Gatorade and a bottle of water between every inning, Sabathia guided the Yankees through eight and two-thirds innings of a 4-3 victory against the Kansas City Royals in the opener of a four-game series. They rode a home run by Austin Kearns, his first as a Yankee, and two hits by Curtis Granderson, who was showing off his remodeled mechanics, to carry a 4-1 lead into the ninth. With Mariano Rivera unavailable after working the last two nights, Dave Robertson relieved Sabathia and gave up a two-run double to Willie Bloomquist before striking out Jason Kendall on a wicked curveball, the eighth pitch of the at-bat, with runners on the corners, to end the game. ?That?s the hardest out I?ve gotten in a long time,? Robertson said. Manager Joe Girardi said that if Rivera had been available, he would have started the ninth inning. But when Sabathia put on two runners with two outs in the ninth, Girardi said he felt he would have been pressing his luck if he had left him in. ?With the heat, we don?t want to wear this big guy down,? Girardi said. Of all the things the Yankees do well, perhaps nothing compares to their talent for defeating inferior opponents any way they can. Against the four weaklings of the American League ? Seattle, Baltimore, Cleveland and Kansas City, which lost three of four in the Bronx last month ? the Yankees are 24-8. That success may not help them in the playoffs, but it will certainly help them get there. The Yankees (71-43) gained a half-game on the idle Tampa Bay Rays, extending their lead in the A.L. East to two games. Sabathia has proven exceptional, regardless of the opposition. Following up on his dominating outing last Saturday against the Boston Red Sox, Sabathia scattered 10 hits in winning his 15th game, tying him with David Price of Tampa Bay for best in the A.L. Sabathia used an exceptional sinker to induce 14 groundouts ? including a pair of double plays ? to keep his pitch count at a manageable 110, and that efficiency helped him work quickly. He struck out only three, despite having perhaps his best velocity of the season. Into the ninth inning, his fastball was clocked at 97 miles per hour. ?I always say when it?s hotter, it?s easier for me to get loose,? Sabathia said. ?I don?t have to work as hard to throw the ball hard.? After not starting the last two nights to digest suggestions made by the hitting coach Kevin Long, Granderson returned Thursday night, batting eighth against the left-hander Bruce Chen. The changes, as described by Long on Wednesday, were sweeping ? a ?total reformation? of the swing, he said. Granderson politely disagreed, calling them imperceptible to the naked eye, but the distinction may be a matter of semantics. The biggest difference, he said, involved the positioning of his hands, which stay farther back in an effort to reduce unnecessary movement and produce a more compact swing. With Granderson, progress is measured incrementally, and hits in his first two at-bats ? against a left-handed pitcher, no less ? can instill confidence. His first time up, Granderson stayed back on an outside curveball and shot it into center field for a two-out single to score Robinson Cano. In the third inning, Granderson unfurled a swing that looked conspicuously shorter, and he lined a double into the right-field corner. ?Everything felt good in terms of timing,? Granderson said. INSIDE PITCH Andy Pettitte sustained his first setback in his recovery from a groin injury when he was scratched Thursday from a simulated outing because of tightness in his left hip flexor. He still played catch, though, and as long as he wakes up Friday feeling better, he will throw two simulated innings at the Yankees? complex in Tampa, Fla. The earliest Pettitte could begin a minor league rehabilitation assignment is Wednesday. ?If you have to push it back a couple days, you push it back because the last thing you want is a real big setback,? Manager Joe Girardi said. ?Because then you?re talking another month, six weeks.?... The Yankees will hold a public memorial at Yankee Stadium for George Steinbrenner during their Sept. 20-23 series against Tampa Bay, according to MLB.com. Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees? co-chairman, told the Web site, ?We?re still trying to pin it down, but I think it?s going to be before the game on Sept. 20.? The Steinbrenner family did not attend the ceremony held at Yankee Stadium on July 16, three days after Steinbrenner died at age 80.
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