Sabathia Makes Successful Return for Yankees

Nick Swisher had a productive night with the bat and CC Sabathia made an impressive return from injury as the New York Yankees beat Cleveland 3-1 to hand the Indians a ninth consecutive loss on Friday.

Swisher batted in all three New York runs with a first inning double and a two run homer in the seventh, his 100th home run with the Yankees.

Sabathia easily managed seven and a third innings, allowing just the one run, a solo homer to Asdrubal Cabrera in the fourth.

The starting pitcher showed no signs of the sore left elbow that landed him on the 15-day disabled list, instead throttling the Indians to improve to 13-3 on the season and help the Yankees to 73-52, arresting a three-game losing sequence.

New York increased their lead in the American League East after division rivals Tampa Bay fell 5-4 to Oakland, while the Indians have now lost nine straight, dropping well out of the wildcard race at 54-71.

The game threatened to boil over at times after Derek Jeter was hit in the head by a Corey Kluber pitch, knocking his helmet off and clearly incensing the Yankees captain in the second inning.

Jeter was unhurt but both benches were warned in the fourth when Sabathia threw behind Cabrera, who then dispensed the next pitch over the wall.

"It scared me. You're thinking of concussion and possibly worse," Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said.

Jeter was trying to give rookie Kluber the benefit of the doubt.

"Nobody wants to get hit in the head," Jeter said. "There's pitching inside and then there is up there. I'd like to hope he was just a kid trying to pitch inside. But that is a dangerous area to be doing it."