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Sabathia earns 100th career win as Indians beat Royals

Sep 29, 2007 - 5:13 AM By Pat Madden PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Ticker) -- C.C. Sabathia used his final start of the regular season to make a strong bid for his first American League Cy Young Award.

Sabathia went seven effective innings for his 100th career win and helped the Cleveland Indians snap a two-game slide with Friday's 5-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals.

The Cleveland win, along with Boston's over Minnesota, gives each team identical 95-65 records heading into the final two games of the season in the race for the best record in the AL.

Sabathia (19-7), who became the youngest pitcher to win 100 games since Greg Maddux in 1993, allowed three runs and seven hits with four strikeouts while walking just one.

"It's a big accomplishment, but I feel like I've got a lot more left to do," Sabathia said. "I was a little rusty. I hadn't realized that I'd had that many days off until I got out there and I was trying to overthrow. I felt pretty good out there, especially in the fourth, fifth and sixth."

"It was a great win for C.C., his 100th career win and his 19th of the year," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "He's come so far in such a short period of time, and he's the leader of our staff. It's great to see him accomplish what he's accomplished this year and over the course of his career.

Royals manager Buddy Bell echoed the Indians' sentiments.

"He should win the Cy Young," Bell said of Sabathia's performance this season. "If I had a vote, and I don't, he would be my vote."

Cleveland's Rafael Betancourt logged a perfect eighth and closer Joe Borowski shut the door in the ninth for his 44th save.

Casey Blake's run-scoring single to center in the fourth inning snapped a 3-3 tie and later came home on Asdrubal Cabrera's RBI single to chase Royals starter Kyle Davies (3-7).

Cleveland jumped out to a 3-0 lead as Hafner belted his 24th homer - a two-run shot - in the first and an inning later Kenny Lofton added a run-scoring triple to right-center field.

"Overall, I feel like I've swung the bat pretty well in September, and I'm just trying to develop some consistency in my at-bats," Hafner said. "You want to be swinging the bat well going into the playoffs."

"He works hard to be the great hitter that he is," Wedge said. "We're definitely seeing it translate into the game. It couldn't happen at a better time for us and for him. When Travis Hafner's going up there and swinging the bat like he's capable of, it can impact the game for us."

Davies registered his fourth setback in five starts, giving up five runs and five hits with four walks through just 3 2/3 frames.

"I think I threw, like eight or nine balls in the span of the first two batters I faced," Davies said. "The first two innings I was trying too hard to make perfect pitches. If you're doing that too much it's going to catch up with you and when you do have to make perfect pitches you can't."

Esteban German had a two-run home run in the second and Emil Brown delivered an RBI double in the third for Kansas City, which has lost five of six game overall.

With the loss, the Royals (68-92) are now assured of finishing last behind the Chicago White Sox (71-89) in the AL Central for the fourth consecutive season.