CC Sabathia

On 8 April 2001 the Baltimore Orioles came to Jacobs Field and scored three runs in the first inning. They made no more hits after that. Cleveland answered with single runs in the second and fifth innings, then put two on the board in the seventh to win 4–3. The final line was eight hits for Cleveland, three for Baltimore, no errors on either side. It took two hours and forty-three minutes in front of 40,754 people. The starting pitcher for Cleveland was twenty years old, left-handed, six feet six inches tall, and making his first appearance in the major leagues.

The season table shows what came next. He made thirty-three starts in 2001 and won seventeen of them, with an earned run average — the number of earned runs a pitcher allows per nine innings — of 4.39. The following year he made thirty-three starts again, won thirteen, and posted an ERA of 4.37. The third season brought thirteen wins and an ERA of 3.60. The fourth brought eleven wins and an ERA of 4.12. The fifth brought fifteen wins and an ERA of 4.03. In 2006 the ERA dropped to 3.22 and he made six complete games, meaning he pitched all nine innings without being replaced. In 2007 he made thirty-four starts, won nineteen, struck out 209 batters, walked 37, and posted an ERA of 3.21. That was his seventh season with Cleveland.

In 2008 he made eighteen starts for Cleveland and seventeen for Milwaukee. The Milwaukee line shows eleven wins, two losses, an ERA of 1.65, and seven complete games in those seventeen starts. The combined line for that year shows thirty-five starts, seventeen wins, ten losses, an ERA of 2.70, and ten complete games. After that summer he signed with the New York Yankees and did not change clubs again for eleven years.

The Yankees years show a different shape. In 2009 he made thirty-four starts and won nineteen. In 2010 he made thirty-four starts and won twenty-one. In 2011 he made thirty-three starts, won nineteen, and struck out 230 batters. In 2012 he made twenty-eight starts and won fifteen. In 2013 he made thirty-two starts, won fourteen, and the ERA rose to 4.78. In 2014 he made eight starts. In 2015 he made twenty-nine starts and won six. The ERA that year was 4.73. In 2016 he made thirty starts and won nine. In 2017 he made twenty-seven starts and won fourteen, with an ERA of 3.69. In 2018 he made twenty-nine starts and won nine. In 2019 he made twenty-two starts and won five, with an ERA of 4.95. His last game was on 24 September 2019.

The career total is five hundred and sixty-one games, five hundred and sixty of them starts. He won 251 and lost 161. He pitched 3,577.1 innings, struck out 3,093 batters, walked 1,099, and allowed 3,404 hits. The career ERA is 3.74. He completed thirty-eight games and recorded twelve shutouts — games in which the opposing team scored no runs at all. The debut was in 2001 and the last game was in 2019, which is nineteen seasons and nineteen years.