Bleeding Yankee Blue: IS THIS THE END OF CC SABATHIA?

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

IS THIS THE END OF CC SABATHIA?

This may be bad....really bad.

Photo: Getty Images

In case you missed it, CC Sabathia exited last night's game in the third inning with a knee injury. In the post game show he sounded defeated. He sounded hopeless. It definitely made the loss last night even worse.

Until last night, CC's last season looked pretty damn good. I didn't expect to see such a dependable CC and after DON'T LOOK NOW BUT SABATHIA IS 9-4 this is deflating. He didn't get the recognition for his good work this year and now that is overlooked by this. Let's hope this is minor.

Photo: Getty Images

Some are calling this the end of his Yankee career. Today CC is flying back to New York to meet with doctors and find out where we go from here. Hopefully there is some good news. The last thing he wants to hear is that his knee injury in August means he won't be back and last night's three innings.....are his last three as a Yankee.

I'm hoping for some good news here, but CC as had problems with this same knee since he was diagnosed with a degenerative condition in 2014. He had major surgery on it in July of 2014 and has pitched with a knee brace since then. His right knee is basically bone on bone at this point and has frequent injections to help drain excess fluid and also help lubricate. It's definitely complicated.

Following the game CC mentioned that this was a sudden injury, so it's not something that has been nagging him and becoming more painful over time. This came out of nowhere which makes this scenario even scarier. At this point, a trip to the disabled list sounds likely but I really hope I am wrong.

Source: David Maxwell/Getty Images North America

If CC does hit the DL the obvious replacement would be recalling Jordan Montgomery from Triple-A but I don't see that happening. Joe Girardi says he has an innings limit of around 180 and he's only at 115.2 innings soooooo I really don't understand the logic here especially since he is still pitching down in Triple-A. Figure if Montgomery had 10 regular season starts left without skipping him for any reason that would allow him to pitch six innings per game. I'm not counting postseason, we have to get there first. The math just doesn't make sense here but....whatever.

Photo: Getty Images

At this point I wouldn't be surprised if the Yankees rely on Bryan Mitchell or Luis Cessa to takeover his spot. I just don't see the Yankees changing their plan with Montgomery at this point.

So last night sucked for many reasons. Our offense died, we lost the game and we lost CC early in the game. I just hope he isn't lost for the rest of the season. He's been healthy all season and he's a gamer. He doesn't want to go out like this and quite frankly, neither do I.

I'm waiting to hear some good news on CC.....we need some.