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Sabathia seeks to solve Athletics

Apr 22, 2009 - 3:52 AM By Santosh Venkataraman Stats Senior Writer

Oakland (5-8) at NY Yankees (9-6), 1:05 p.m. EDT

BRONX, New York (AP) -- CC Sabathia hasn't enjoyed much success against the team located closest to his hometown.

The high-priced New York Yankees left-hander looks to reverse his fortunes against the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday in the finale of a rain-shortened two-game series.

Sabathia (1-1, 4.85 ERA) hails from Vallejo, Calif. - located just north of Oakland. The Yankees ace is just 3-7 with a 6.12 ERA in 15 career outings versus the Athletics, and the only team he has a worse ERA against is New York (6.16).

He might find things different against this Oakland (5-8) team. Jason Giambi is 2-for-11 against him and Orlando Cabrera is even worse at 4-for-26 for the Athletics, who haven't homered in their last six games.

Sabathia faced great expectations as the staff's top pitcher after signing a $161 million, seven-year contract in the offseason. He gave up six runs and five walks to lose on opening day at Baltimore, settled down to pitch 7 2-3 scoreless innings in a win at Kansas City on April 11 before getting the call to pitch in the first game at the new Yankee Stadium on Thursday.

Sabathia allowed one run over 5 2-3 innings, issued five walks and did not get a decision in a 10-2 loss to Cleveland.

"The park still looks kind of like the old stadium," he said. "But it's a weird feeling, too, going out, you know, it being a clean slate, a new era of Yankee baseball."

After Monday's game was rained out, New York (9-6) won 5-3 on Tuesday. Brett Gardner had a two-run single and Johnny Damon added the game's lone homer with a solo shot in the sixth inning.

There were 20 homers hit in the first series at the new Yankee Stadium - a four-game set against Cleveland.

"Everybody was talking about balls flying. If you make your pitches, balls don't fly out," Yankees captain Derek Jeter said. "I think everybody was overexaggerating after four games."

Giambi had a single in four at-bats in his return to New York to face the team he spent his last seven years with. He's yet to homer this year, and the A's are sorely lacking in power.

Oakland has a major league-low three homers, also failing to hit one while losing six of its last seven versus New York, including five straight.

Brett Anderson (0-2, 3.57) will make his third career start for Oakland after losing his first two. He was very effective last Wednesday against Boston, though, giving up two runs over seven innings in an 8-2 loss.

"Brett Anderson was great," manager Bob Geren told Oakland's official Web site. "He just got one changeup up for the homer, but other than that, he was excellent. Two runs in seven innings against that lineup is outstanding."

The 21-year-old left-hander, acquired in the 2007 trade that sent Dan Haren to Arizona, pitched at all three levels of Oakland's minor league system last season and struck out 118 in 105 innings while walking 27 and posting a 3.69 ERA.