The Yankees need a horse if they are going to win their first World Series since 2009. They need the kind of horse that CC Sabathia was in October and November of ’09.

Sabathia started five games for the Yankees in that postseason. He pitched at least into the seventh inning of every one of them, including the game in the Series that he lost to the Phillies. In his two starts in the American League Championship Series against the Angels, Sabathia pitched a total of 16 innings. His earned run average was 1.13.

Call him what you want. A horse. Or just an ace, because he was everything 10 years ago that an ace is supposed to be in big games in baseball. The Yankees haven’t had anybody quite like him since.

You know the deal. It’s more with these guys than just an arm and more than just numbers.

Buck Showalter once had the best definition of an ace in baseball that I’ve ever heard: “You know one when you see one.”

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Gerrit Cole, now a free agent, was that kind of ace for the Astros this year, even if his team came up one win short of winning it all against the Nationals. Stephen Strasburg, also now a free agent, was that kind of ace, and more, for the Nationals, winning five games in October of ’19, and pitching the game of his life against the Astros -- on the road, in Game 6, when the Nationals were playing another elimination game, down three games to two.

And Max Scherzer, whether he got the win or not, whether he was ahead or behind when Dave Martinez took the ball for him, was a total ace for the Nationals, all the way until Game 7 of the World Series.

It is fair for Brian Cashman, the Yankees' general manager, to say that starting pitching isn’t the reason the Yankees lost to the Astros in another ALCS. But it’s not as if the starting pitching did enough to win the thing for the Yankees, either, even with the six inning of one-hit ball that Masahiro Tanaka threw at the Astros in Game 1, as the Yankees were on their way to winning that one, 7-0.

I called my pal John Labombarda at the Elias Sports Bureau (they know everything) on Monday and asked him to compare what the starters and relievers did for the Yankees and Astros in the ALCS, when the Yankees clearly thought they could bullpen their way back to their first Series in a decade. The numbers aren’t all that dramatically different (and please remember Game 6 was totally a bullpen game for the Yankees, with Chad Green acting as an “opener”).

Yankees starters pitched a total of 24 2/3 innings in the six-game series, with an earned run average of 3.65. The Astros' starters had a better ERA -- 3.03 -- but also pitched eight more innings than the Yankees' starters did. The flip side of this, of course, is that Houston’s relievers pitched 22 1/3 innings. Yankees relievers across the six games? They pitched 30.

The Yankee relievers had a better ERA, 2.70 to 4.03 for the Astros’ relievers. But Adam Ottavino let the Yankees down, and badly, in Game 2 at Minute Maid Park, when New York had a great chance to go ahead two games to none. He gave up a fifth-inning home run to George Springer that helped change the night for the Astros, before Carlos Correa took J.A. Happ out of Minute Maid Park in the 11th to win the game.

Overall, the Yankees played nine postseason games this past October. Their starters did not pitch more than six innings in any of them. Tanaka had those six innings in Game 1. James Paxton was out of Game 2 after 2 1/3 innings. Luis Severino got one out in the fifth inning of Game 3 before he was lifted. Tanaka pitched five innings in Game 4. Paxton pitched six innings in Game 5.

There are other reasons why the Yankees fell short of the Series again. Other than two really huge swings -- a three-run homer from Aaron Hicks, DJ LeMahieu’s tying, ninth-inning shot in Game 6 before José Altuve ended the thing a few minutes later -- the Yankees just did not get enough big hits, the way they didn’t get enough big hits against the Red Sox in the 2018 AL Division Series between the two teams. You know who they didn’t have? They didn’t have somebody like Anthony Rendon.

LeMahieu was tremendous all season. He was. But the game changer on the team is supposed to be Aaron Judge. Judge wasn’t this time around. Six hits in the six games. One home run. Two RBIs.

But what the Yankees really didn’t have was somebody to do what Strasburg did in Game 6 of the World Series, into the top of the ninth in Houston. And when Scherzer pitched himself -- and his heart -- out after five innings in Game 7, the guy who picked him up and got the win in the biggest game of his life was another big starter for the Nationals, Patrick Corbin, on whom the Yankees got outbid last winter.

The Yankees won 103 regular-season games this year. It’s not as if a horse, an ace, is going to make them all that much better in the next regular season. But they still measure things differently at Yankee Stadium. The yardstick they still use is October. They need a horse by next October. They need somebody like CC.