One bad inning does in CC Sabathia again

NEW YORK – There was Opening Night in Houston and the six runs he served up in the first two innings of his six-inning outing. There was the second start in Toronto and the one run he surrendered in the first and the three in his sixth and final inning.

"When I look at his starts … it's been a couple innings," Joe Girardi said a few hours before CC Sabathia's start No. 3, Friday night against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. "So he needs to stay away from those couple innings."

Sabathia especially needed to stay away from them with Jon Lester throwing for the other side in this edition of The Rivalry. But Sabathia couldn't do it, experiencing one bad inning, throwing away his shutout with a two-homer, four-hit, four-run sixth. He gave up no runs and two hits across his other six innings, and he fanned nine.

Boston bounced back with a 4-2 win after dropping Game 1 in this four-game series, getting 6 2/3 innings of two-run, six-hit work out of Lester.

So the Yankees are 5-6 and so are the defending champs. Lester is 1-2 and so is Sabathia.

"It's frustrating," Sabathia said.

The most frustrating part? He's 33, been around for what seems like forever now, yet he admittedly went down in a sea of emotion.

It was 1-0 Yankees heading for the sixth. And then Sabathia grooved a pitch down the middle to the first batter, and Jonny Gomes knew where to put it, pulling the ball to the left-field seats.

One out later, David Ortiz reached on a checked-swing infield single to the left side with Mike Napoli on deck. Sabathia fumed over his unlucky break.

"Usually I'm able to stay even keel and not let that get to me, not let that frustrate me," Sabathia said. "Next thing I know, it's 3-0 on Napoli before I even calmed down. That's something that I did when I was in my 20s and younger. I have to get better."

Napoli ultimately delivered a hard single to left-center — first and second.

Grady Sizemore, Sabathia's old Indians pal, stepped in.

"I was just trying to look for a good pitch," Sizemore said. "I wasn't really sitting on anything."

Sabathia got a strike, then threw a hit-me-far slider and Sizemore launched a three-run shot to the right-field seats. Just like that, it was 4-1 Boston.

"I was just frustrated," Sabathia said. "I kind of rushed through and left the pitch hanging."

Alfonso Soriano led off the second and sent up a homer to left. It wasn't until there were two outs in the seventh when Lester cracked again, giving up a single to Ichiro Suzuki, a walk to Brian Roberts and an RBI single to Kelly Johnson.

"It did feel like something might turn," Johnson said.

It didn't. Righty Junichi Tazawa replaced the lefty Lester and faced Derek Jeter with runners at the corners. The Captain lifted a fly to right —threat over.

"We don't have everyone clicking at this point yet," Girardi said.

He was talking about the offense. That went for Sabathia, too. Sabathia, though, feels better about himself than he did last year when he struggled to a career-worst 4.78 ERA.

As he put it: "I haven't been able to put a whole game together."

Twitter: @bheyman99