Once more, with feeling: Yankees' Sabathia beats Birds again

BALTIMORE - CC Sabathia is known for his flat-line disposition, but his competitive fire does show up from time to time. Take his 114th and final pitch in last night's 4-2 victory over the Orioles at Camden Yards.

Leading 3-2, Sabathia walked Ty Wigginton to load the bases with two outs. Up came Luke Scott, a power threat with 10 homers and 1-for-3 on the night to that point.

Sabathia got ahead of Scott 1-and-2 and finished him off swinging at a slider for the third out. Sabathia punctuated the strikeout with multiple fist pumps, looking much more like Joba Chamberlain than his typically emotionless self.

"Real big," manager Joe Girardi said of the moment. "Huge inning for us."

Leading 4-2, Joba Chamberlain had an eventful eighth. With one out, he allowed Matt Wieters' double after leftfielder Kevin Russo saved an extra-base hit with a diving catch of Adam Jones' liner. Chamberlain recovered, striking out pinch hitter Corey Patterson and getting pinch hitter Scott Moore to ground out. Mariano Rivera retired the Orioles in order in the ninth for his 14th save.

"I saw it and I just reacted to it," said Russo, primarily an infielder during his minor-league career. "That's what I'm out there for, to contribute to the team however I can."

Sabathia is out there each night as the Yankees' ace, though of late he hadn't pitched like it, coming into the game with only one victory in his last six outings.

He allowed nine hits but just two runs in seven innings in improving to 6-3. He's taken advantage of the quirk in the schedule that's allowed him to face the last-place Orioles every time the teams have played, and this was his fourth victory over them this season.

But it took a rally for him to get that fourth win as the Yankees (37-22), who beat the Orioles (16-43) for the 10th straight time, trailed 2-0 after three. But Sabathia, who struck out eight and walked three, locked in after that, retiring nine of the next 10 hitters.

At the plate the Yankees got a third straight three-hit game from Robinson Cano and two hits each by Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez.

"He just started locating his fastball and he started using his breaking ball more effectively," Girardi said. "It seemed like he had his changeup from the beginning but he was struggling a little bit with the location of his fastball and he found it."

Sabathia traced his issues during the last month to fastball command and a sometimes erratic changeup.

"Starting to get a little better," Sabathia said. "Changeup was a lot better today."

Sabathia, fairly or unfairly, probably always will be measured based on the sustained streaks of excellence he had in 2007, his Cy Young season, 2008 and last year. After being dealt from the Indians to the Brewers in 2008, Sabathia went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA in 17 starts. He led baseball in victories after the All-Star break last season, going 11-2 with a 2.74 ERA. This season, he hasn't had those kinds of stretches.

"It's a long season," Sabathia said. "It's June. So hopefully I can get that going . . . You can't expect me to go out and put 10 starts together like I did the last two years or whatever. But I can go out and keep the team in the game and try to help us win."

Against the Orioles, for Sabathia and the Yankees, that's almost always the case.