Yankees' formula: One CC of Sabathia for nearly every game

NEW YORK -- The Yankees knew they needed CC Sabathia.

They knew it 12 months ago. They know it more now.

For all the discussion of which Yankee was most valuable during the 103-win regular season -- Mark Teixeira? Derek Jeter? Alex Rodriguez? Mariano Rivera? -- not one of those stars is the most important in the American League Championship Series that begins Friday night.

CC Sabathia is.

The Yankees have enough great hitters that if one or two don't perform, someone else will. Rivera is crucial as always, but the Yankees need late-inning leads before they can put him to work.

They need their starting pitchers to be good, and there's no starting pitcher they count on as much as Sabathia.

Why do the Yankees want to start Sabathia three times in a seven-game series? Because they can't find a way to start him four times. Or five.

"He deserves the ball anytime they give it to him," said Chad Gaudin, one of the potential Game 4 starters the Yankees very much want to avoid using.

The plan to use Sabathia in Games 1, 4 and 7, which could still be derailed by a rainout, tells you a lot about what the Yankees think of Gaudin, Joba Chamberlain and anyone else who could possibly become the fourth starter.

But it also tells you what they think of Sabathia, the 19-game winner who was 9-1 with a 2.52 ERA over the final two months of the season.

"He's strong, and he's ready to go," pitching coach Dave Eiland said Thursday.

And in four career starts on three days' rest (which is what Sabathia would have in Game 4 of a rainout-free series), Sabathia is 3-1 with a 1.01 ERA.

It sounds like a great plan, even though no starter since Bob Gibson with the 1967 Cardinals has won Games 1, 4 and 7 in the same postseason series. While it was once common for teams to use a three-man rotation in the playoffs, only one starter in the last five years (Derek Lowe with the 2008 Dodgers) has even started Games 1 and 4 in a seven-game series.

The recent numbers for pitchers starting on three days' rest in October aren't good. Since the start of the 2004 postseason, only two of the 16 starters on three days' rest got credit for wins, and teams starting a pitcher on three days are 3-9 against teams starting a pitcher on normal rest.

"It doesn't matter," Sabathia said. "They say on three days' rest you don't have your best fastball, and you have to stay under control. Last year, when I pitched on three days, I think my stuff was a little better."

Last year, Sabathia pitched on three days in three consecutive starts in September, as the Brewers were trying to get to the playoffs. The Yankees were able to back off Sabathia this September, because they were already basically assured of a playoff spot.

The idea was that by giving Sabathia a lighter workload down the stretch in the regular season, they could lean on him more this month -- when they really need him.

The Yankees will tell you that they like their rotation. Sabathia said the same regularly during the season, comparing the Yankees starters to the Barry Zito-Tim Hudson-Mark Mulder trio his hometown A's featured in the early years of this decade.

But A.J. Burnett is still an inconsistent No. 2 (he walked five in six innings against the Twins), and No. 3 starter Andy Pettitte is still 37 years old.

And for all the Yankees' efforts to develop their young starting pitchers, the only one who could possibly start in this series is Chamberlain, who pitched poorly down the stretch -- and is better suited for the bullpen, anyway.

"I'm not disappointed," general manager Brian Cashman said. "We don't get to where we are without what Phil Hughes did, and what Dave Robertson did, and what Joba did.

"And we signed Sabathia and Burnett to do what they did."

That's true. The Yankees realized last year that the young starters weren't ready to take over, and that's why they spent $161 million on Sabathia and $82.5 million on Burnett. They also spent $5.5 million (plus incentives) to bring back Pettitte, giving them an Opening Day rotation of Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte, Chamberlain and Chien-Ming Wang.

Wang was bad, and injured. Hughes, who would have been among the first choices to fill in, started one game but then ended up in the bullpen. He became such an important reliever that the Yankees couldn't afford to move him back. Ian Kennedy, who would have been another option, also got hurt.

As for Chamberlain, he won nine games, but only one in 10 tries after Aug. 6. He looked better in his three relief appearances against the Twins, feeding into the idea that he's just not suited to starting.

"I don't feel more confident as a reliever," Chamberlain insisted. "You go through a year, you learn a lot. But I wouldn't change anything about it."

The Yankees might want to change something, because they might prefer having a dependable fourth starter for the postseason. They might prefer it if they didn't need to lean on Sabathia for three starts in a seven-game series.

But the fact is they do need to rely on him, because the other options aren't that good.

And because Sabathia is that good.