CLEVELAND — It was home sweet second home for CC Sabathia on Saturday night.
Back in Cleveland, where he spent the first 10-plus years of his career, Sabathia was in the comfort zone, helping the Yankees to a 10-5 victory in front of 34,396 fans at Progressive Field — many of them wearing the Bronx Bombers’ colors.
While his offense made quick work of Indians starter Fausto Carmona, Sabathia backed it up by holding Cleveland without a hit through 41/3 innings. The big left-hander allowed just three runs on five hits, striking out eight over seven innings in his second start against his former teammates.
“He threw the ball well in New York, but he was better today,” said Indians manager Eric Wedge of Sabathia, who allowed a run on five hits in 5 2/3 innings of a 10-2 loss to Cleveland in the opener at new Yankee Stadium. “He had real good stuff out there today.”
Sabathia (5-3, 3.46) allowed the Indians to put just one runner on board through the first four innings, striking out four of the 12 hitters he faced. After fanning Jhonny Peralta to start the fifth, Sabathia lost the no-hitter when Shin-Soo Choo grounded a ball back through the middle. Sabathia deflected the ball with his left hand, and Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano failed to make the barehand play behind him.
He allowed two runs in the fifth before surrendering a solo home run to Grady Sizemore to lead off the sixth.
“I was throwing strikes and getting ahead,” said Sabathia, who didn’t receive much of a reaction from the crowd after getting booed by Cavaliers fans at Quicken Loans Arena during a playoff victory over the Magic on Thursday. “I was having fun. It was good to be back in Cleveland.”
Carmona had no chance against his former rotation mate even if he was at his best, which he wasn’t and hasn’t been all season.
Falling to 2-5 with a 6.60 ERA, Carmona allowed seven runs (four earned) on eight hits in just four innings. Solo home runs from Jorge Posada and Nick Swisher in the second preceded a five-run fourth for the Yankees, who took control with one out in the inning. They put five straight aboard and scored four runs on singles from Derek Jeter and Cano.
“It’s been a work in progress for him,” Wedge said of Carmona, who has allowed less than four runs in just two of his 11 starts. “He was doing a better job of working ahead early but he got the middle of the plate too much and they were squaring him up pretty good.”
Carmona’s defense let him down, committing two errors in New York’s decisive fourth inning. First baseman Ryan Garko botched a throw to second on a potential double-play ball that could have gotten Cleveland out of the inning without a run crossing the plate.
Cleveland scored twice in the final inning, the first on a leadoff homer from Choo, who clouted a pitch from reliever Jose Veras an estimated 460 feet over the center-field wall.
Making the Indians’ second straight loss to the Yanks even worse was an injury to Victor Martinez.
During his only at-bat off Sabathia in the first inning, Martinez fouled a pitch off his left knee and immediately crumpled to the ground where he lay on his stomach until head trainer Lonnie Soloff and Wedge left the dugout to attend to him.
Martinez shook it off and finished the at-bat, but after grounding to second, he barely made it down the line, limping off the field and needing assistance to get down the dugout steps. He was replaced by Kelly Shoppach.
“We’re probably looking at day-to-day with him right now,” Wedge said of Martinez, who missed a large portion of last season with an elbow injury. “It’s good news that the X-rays were negative.”
Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com.

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