CC Sabathia was on the wrong side of the Leverage Index last night. It was all about the 5th inning in last night’s 6-0 Red Sox win and Sabathia couldn’t get it done in the big moment.
Josh Beckett, on the other hand, excelled.
Last week, we talked a little bit about Tom Tango’s Leverage Index and understanding situational baseball and the value of any given moment in a game.
Both Beckett and Sabathia found themselves involved in high-leverage game situations last night. And it all occurred in the 5th inning. Both Beckett and Sabathia encountered at-bats that were 2.0 or higher on the Leverage Index (LI).
In those game situations, Beckett was 2-0 (won both matchups) while Sabathia was 0-2.
Jacoby Ellsbury‘s 5th inning double that scored two runs, rated out as a 2.97 on the Leverage Index (2.97 LI) and it was the killer for New York as Sabathia found himself losing to Boston for the second time this year.
Sabathia had just shot himself in the foot by walking Jason Varitek and loading the bases (2.45 LI). Sabathia slowly created this high-leverage situation with Varitek by allowing base hits to Jed Lowrie (1.19 LI) and Carl Crawford (1.56 LI).
Although Sabathia mixed in a fly-out to Mike Cameron (1.83 LI), by allowing Varitek to load the bases with one out, he created the most critical moment of the night.
And in just three pitches, he lost control for his team. Sabathia threw a 1-1 slider to Ellsbury that he lined to left-field. He was able to get Ellsbury to ground out on the slider in the 3rd inning, but this time, the slider was away and close to the middle of the plate. Ellsbury went oppo and game Boston a 2-0 lead.
On the other side of the mound was Josh Beckett who faced similar circumstances in the 5th inning. Beckett created his own high-leverage moment by allowing Andruw Jones to single and walking Derek Jeter.
Beckett faced a similar circumstance to that of Sabathia in the top half of the 5th. The difference being that Beckett won his big moment and kept New York off the board after the Sox grabbed the momentum. In what was the second-highest leverage point of the night, Beckett got Curtis Granderson (2.71 LI) to foul out to the catcher. Had Beckett allowed the red-hot Granderson to do anything offensively, you have a totally different game.
Instead, he prevented the base runners from moving and didn’t allow Granderson to do any damage. It was a critical out and he would need to do it again with the next better because with two outs, runners on first and second holding a two-run lead, Beckett would need to face Mark Teixeira.
Again, there were exactly four points in last night’s matchup where the LI was over 2.0. All four were in the 5th inning and Beckett and Sabathia were each involved in two of them. 
The Teixeira vs. Beckett matchup rated as the 4th most critical game-situation of the evening. And what did Beckett do? Nothing but perform like an Ace and strike out Teixeira to preserve the 2-0 lead.
Beckett would only have to throw one more inning after the brilliant 5th and he dominated the Yankees’ bats in the 6th. Beckett faced a moderate leverage point to open the 6th inning (1.43 LI) when he faced Alex Rodriguez but he made good work of A-Rod by striking him out.
Beckett was excellent last night when the moments were big. It shows that this year’s version is on par with some of his best seasons.
And the Sox may continue to struggle with mostly lefties, but they certainly don’t seem to be afraid of Sabathia.