CC Sabathia's Major League Career Ends With Shoulder Injury

CC Sabathia's major league career ends with shoulder injury

New York, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Oct, 2019 ) :New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia said it's "kind of fitting" that it was an insurmountable injury to his left shoulder that brought down the curtain on his 19-year Major League Baseball career.

"I think it's just kind of fitting. I threw until I couldn't anymore," Sabathia told reporters Friday, the day after the 39-year-old left-hander was forced out of game four of the American League Championship Series, which the Yankees lost 8-3 to the Houston Astros to fall within one defeat of elimination.

Sabathia said he was hurt on a 92 mph pitch that Aledmys Diaz popped up.

"When I released the ball, my shoulder kind of went with it," he said.

Clearly in pain after delivering a third pitch to George Springer in the eighth inning, Sabathia tried to stay in, throwing a warm-up pitch as he was watched by Yankees manager Aaron Boone and trainer Steve Donohue.

But he was left to make an emotional trek to the dugout to cheers from Yankee Stadium fans and applause even from the Astros.

"I think that's what got me more emotional than the actual injury, just hearing the fans and the way that they were cheering me," Sabathia said. ""Makes me feel good. Makes me feel like I made the right choice 11 years ago." Sabathia signed with the Yankees before the 2009 season and won a World Series title in his first season in New York.

He was a six-time All-Star and the 2007 American League Cy Young Award winner with Cleveland and finishes his career with a 251-161 regular-season record with 3,093 strikeouts.

"Every single time he went out there, you had to rip the ball or rip his jersey off to get that man off the mound," Yankees star Aaron Judge said Thursday night of Sabathia, who made multiple trips to the injured list this season.

"He got everything out of that arm. That's a warrior right there."The Yankees said Sabathia's injury was a subluxation of his left shoulder joint and dropped him from the 25-man ALCS roster on Friday -- bringing down the curtain on a season that Sabathia said in February would be his last.