Sabathia worked quickly and mostly efficiently with the diminished arsenal he has shown the past several seasons. He once routinely fired 97-m.p.h. fastballs past hitters, but Sabathia now keeps them off-balance with an assortment of changeups, cutters and sliders that slice through both sides of the plate. He mixes in a fastball that can reach about 90 m.p.h.

“This is who I am now,” said Sabathia, who improved his record to 2-0 while dropping his E.R.A. to 1.47. “It was fun to throw 97. I don’t really miss it, though. I enjoy what I’m doing now. I feel confident that I can get hitters out with what I have now.”

Sabathia was forced to walk a fine line for much of his day because of the Yankees’ inefficient offense, which could not capitalize on Martinez’s wildness. With a lineup altered by the late scratch of designated hitter Matt Holliday, who reported lower-back soreness, the Yankees left the bases loaded in the first and fifth innings and stranded two runners in the second and third innings.

But they were able to scratch across a run in the first on two walks, a passed ball and a wild pitch. They added two more runs in the sixth when Ronald Torreyes hustled to second base on a routine pop fly that dropped in short left field after Randal Grichuk seemed to lose it in the sun.

Torreyes eluded a tag by second baseman Jedd Gyorko with a swim move into the bag, and he scored from third when Martinez fired the ball over the head of catcher Yadier Molina after fielding a comebacker. Designated hitter Chris Carter, who replaced Holliday in the lineup, drove in the Yankees’ third run with a single to left.

“That’s just Toe being Toe,” Girardi said, using the diminutive Torreyes’s nickname. “Guys get excited whenever he’s on the field.”