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Sabathia, Sizemore calm jitters in ALDS
By Patrick McManamon
Beacon Journal columnist
Published on Friday, Oct 12, 2007
BOSTON: C.C. Sabathia said his first pitch in Game 1 of the American League Division Series against the New York Yankees flew out of his hand at 96 miles per hour.
Too fast, Sabathia said, an odd-sounding thing for a pitcher to say.
''I was excited,'' Sabathia said Thursday. ''It was just one of those deals.''
In center field, Grady Sizemore watched anxiously.
''I think for a lot of us that first inning was probably a little nerve-racking,'' Sizemore said.
By inning five, though, Sabathia had fought through a tough outing and left with his team in the lead.
By Game 4 in New York, Sizemore's first at-bat ended with a leadoff home run that set the tone for a series-clinching victory.
Clearly what nerves and anxiety they felt had been calmed.
Tonight, the stakes are higher as the Indians face the Boston Red Sox for the right to represent the American League in the World Series.
Nerves, quite simply, cannot be a factor.
These youthful Indians cannot afford to start this series anxious or amped up or any of that kind of stuff.
Not with the series starting in Boston and Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling pitching the first two games for the Red Sox.
There can be no nerves not for one single inning.
But this team that lacks playoff experience can look to its experience last week for a foundation.
The Yankees and Red Sox started the playoffs as the teams that had been through the grinder. They would treat the playoffs like a gondola ride through the streets of Venice slow and easy. If any team would show nerves or anxiety, it would be the younger Indians. Or so the thinking went.
But by the series' end in New York, Yankees fans were posting blogs that Alex Rodriguez was chewing his gum at 150 miles per hour, and the Indians had shrugged off a third-game loss and the pressure of playing in Yankee Stadium.
Among the many good things this likable Indians team has done to get where it is, one of the more important was to calm the nerves and eliminate the playoff anxiety. Prior to the ALDS, the players said they would not be nervous; they meant it, but it wasn't realistic.
Sabathia now admits he was too hyped when Game 1 started.
''I had six walks,'' he said. ''I don't think I've walked six guys in a couple years.''
In fact, he had four months this season in which he had six or fewer walks.
Players have different ways of burning off excess energy. In the '90s, Carlos Baerga and Alvaro Espinoza would blast music and join Julian Tavarez in pregame clubhouse dances.
Sabathia will take the introspective approach.
''I need to look at how I pitched,'' he said of the previous Game 1.
Five innings, 114 pitches. Six walks. A constant struggle, with extra work needed in the final inning to get out of a bases-loaded situation.
He started throwing in the 96-to-97-mph range, and knew he was overthrowing.
''Usually I've got my pretty good control when I'm 91 to 94,'' he said.
Tonight?
''I need to control myself and control my emotions and be under control,'' Sabathia said.
Apparently, control is key.
These Indians have a way about them.
Sabathia said excitement about the first game of the playoffs affected him, but he settled down, and that enabled his team to win Game 1 easily.
Sizemore said the days leading up to Game 1 caused anxiety. But by the end of the series, he had hit .375 with four walks and three runs scored.
Perhaps this easygoing approach filters from above. Late Thursday afternoon, Indians President Paul Dolan strolled into Fenway Park.
Dolan was soaked. He had obviously just walked the few blocks from the team hotel in a steady rain for his first visit to Fenway since 1981.
The day before the series started, he just wanted to walk around the park, take in the atmosphere.
Stress seemed thousands of miles away.
If any players feel any anxiousness today, perhaps they could join their president for a walk to the park.
That might be a good way to make these games nothing more than a walk in the park.
Patrick McManamon can be reached at pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/mcmanamon/.
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