Bomber Bites with Jumping Joe Vitulli

Mandatory Credit: Chad R. MacDonald.

Will It Be Good CC or Bad CC Tonight Versus the Mariners and Why This Series Matters to the Fans.

Gone are the days when a CC Sabathia could be penciled in in for seven or eight innings of three-run ball with six or seven strikeouts every five days. These days there is good Sabathia and bad Sabathia. Good Sabathia works down in the zone to induce ground balls and uses his fastball sneakily and ahead in the count. Good Sabathia misses outside the zone and attacks the lineup with his brain, guile and experience. Good Sabathia knows to pitch around the harder spots in the lineup to get the match-ups he wants. Bad Sabathia lets his pitches wander up in the zone. Bad Sabathia lets up too many fly balls and too many of those fly balls end up in the stands. Bad Sabathia works behind in the count and ends up being forced to throw a fastball that simply isn’t as fast as it used to be. And the bottom line remains the same, Good Sabathia wins games, Bad Sabathia doesn’t.

Greg M. Cooper-USA TODAY Sports

CC needs to come up big on Tuesday night against Robinson Cano and the Seattle Mariners. I know it’s one game and one game in April at that. But it is the first game back for Cano after doing something that few players in history have done.  He left New York for more money. Usually, it’s the reverse, just ask Jacoby Ellsbury, Brian McCann and countless others. Yankees’ fans want this game, and this series, more because of it. Cano didn’t just leave the Yankees, he left Yankees’ fans and that is not something they are used to. Especially not a great player like Cano. Fans are used to their players staying in New York until they and the team were done with them. Then they would come back for Old Timer’s Day. Cano rejected that plan and Yankees’ fans never truly saw it coming. The Yankees pay top dollar for high-end talent. They pay top dollar for a lot of medium and low-end talent too. He fired the agent (Scott Boras) who forces his clients to take the most money possible and usually change teams to get it and hired a local upstart agent named Jay-Z.  Jay-Z is known as a New York guy. Jay-Z sings “Empire State of Mind” not “Evergreen State of Mind.” Plus, why would someone want to be anything else but a Yankee?  He wants to play for Seattle? Doesn’t it only rain there? This course of events was unfathomable to the Yankee faithful. Thus, the need for revenge.

Cano will be booed. The fans will take care of that. But they need Sabathia and the rest of the Yankees to take care of business this series. Yankees’ fans thirst for revenge. Their hatred runs deep. If the Yankees’ organization is truly the Evil Empire, then their fans are an army of Sith Lords. That is the reason why the Red Sox-Yankees’ rivalry will never quit, even when the players on each team don’t necessarily dislike each other. The fans genuinely hate the other team and the other team’s fans. Yankees’ fans want to win. And in the first inning, after they boo Cano, if Sabathia can manage to strikeout the former Yankee All-Star second baseman, the stadium will erupt. And those ladies and gentlemen, are your Bomber Bites for today!