Cc Sabathia

Barring a sweep, the Twins are due to face CC twice in the next five days. That's two games against one of the best pitchers in baseball, who very well may end up with another Cy Young award on his mantle this off-season. Do the Twins need to beat Sabathia to win the series? No, not necessarily. Does winning at least one of the two games against Sabathia put the Twins in the driver's seat? Absolutely.
Given the important role Sabathia will play in the series, I thought we'd look a little closer at what has made him so successful in 2010. SabathiaCc
Star-divide
How He Pitches: Well, let's start with the basics: Sabathia is a big, tall, hard-throwing southpaw. His average fastball in 2010 was measured at 93.5 mph, good for 10th in the majors among qualified starters.
Despite his velocity, Sabathia is not really a high-strikeout pitcher. Sure, it's not unusual to see him post big strikeout totals in individual games, but on the season he struck out "just" 7.46 batters per nine innings. Not bad for a mere mortal, but for CC it's a pretty steep drop from the career high he set just two seasons ago (8.93 K/9). In fact, his strikeout rate ranked 35th in the majors among qualified starters, below his opponent in Game 1 (Liriano - 9.44) and even a guy not good enough to crack the Twins postseason rotation (Scott Baker - 7.82). Cc Sabathia