Sabathia’s Dealing

C.C. Sabathia likes the National League. Last night, he made his fourth start with the Brewers since being acquired from Cleveland, and he threw his third straight complete game, giving up just three hits in shutting out the Cardinals. The only other pitcher who has thrown back-to-back complete games this season is Roy Halladay, who threw four straight during April. Three straight complete games is impressive, but he has a ways to go before he ties the Rick Langford’s modern baseball record of 22. Yes, 22. Langford threw complete games in 28 of the 33 games he started in 1980, tossing 290 innings along the way. The game was a little different then.

How does Sabathia’s four start run compare to other great pitching runs we’ve seen this year? Here are the contenders.

John Lackey, 6/11 to 6/29: 31.7 IP, 19 H, 7 BB, 29 K, 1.14 ERA
Dan Haren, 6/18 to 7/4: 28 IP, 18 H, 5 BB, 27 K, 0.96 ERA
Felix Hernandez, 5/31 to 6/17: 28.3 IP, 18 H, 5 BB, 29 K, 0.95 ERA
John Danks, 6/14 to 7/1: 26 IP, 18 H, 6 BB, 22 K, 0.69 ERA
Scott Kazmir, 5/15 to 5/31: 27 IP, 13 H, 7 BB, 27 K, 0.67 ERA

C.C. Sabathia, 7/8 to 7/24: 33 IP, 20 H, 8 BB, 31 K, 1.36 ERA

From a run prevention standpoint, he can’t quite match the best four start stretches of guys like Kazmir and Danks, though he made up for the difference in quality through sheer quantity of innings. I’d probably take Lackey’s run as the best of the bunch, since it came against AL competition, but Sabathia is certainly in the running.

It really is hard to fathom that this Sabathia is the same guy who gave up nine runs in back-to-back games back in April and had a 13.50 ERA after his first four starts of 2008. His ERA since then? 2.10.

With the way Sabathia is throwing, the Brewers are going to be very hard to beat if they get to the playoffs.