Case Closed
- Pump that fist Joba… You are a starter!
Joba Chamberlain showed tonight why he belongs in the rotation and should not go back to the pen under any circumstance. The Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians 5-2. Joba dominated the Indians for eight innings, allowing two runs on four hits. He walked two and struck out 5. Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth and picked up his 11th save.
This should end the ridiculous debate that burns up talk radio, lead by the King Of All Idiots… Mike Francesa. My guess is he will gloss over the start. He find something negative with the start. Mike will never admit he is wrong, so this debate will be far from over. Hopefully people who watched the game tonight will see that Francesa is a clueless fool.
The Yankees are in first place with Joba in the rotation. The team is getting healthy, and show no signs of slowing down. They gained a half a game tonight to lead the Red Sox by a full game.
Sure the Yankee pen needs help. I think they can look to the farm and bring up Mark Melancon. They also should try and get Veras through waivers. If he makes it, great, he can sit in AAA and find some control, if not, he is someone elses problem.
They also can make some trades with teams that will be, or are already, way out of it and looking to dump salary. Maybe they look to add Houston Street from Colorado, or Heath Bell from San Diego. I don’t know what the answer is, but that’s why I’m not a GM. Whatever it is, if the Yankees need a piece they will do everything they can to get that piece. There isn’t a Yankee fan alive who shouldn’t feel good about the team trying to fill holes using all their resources (READ: MONEY).
This was a very good road trip by the Yankees. They finish up the trip going 5-2. They lead the American League with a road record of 16-12, and an overall record of 30-21 (second only to Texas 30-20). The team will head back to New York after the game, and will face the Texas Rangers tomorrow night in the Bronx.
Oh yeah, and the Yankees played an error free game for the 18th time in a row… That sets a Major League Record set by the Red Sox in 2006. To be honest when I saw Angel Berroa was slotted to play 3rd I thought for sure they wouldn’t get the record. It feels good to be wrong.
That’s All for now…
GO YANKEES!
Ruhi Rants 
You are absolutely right about Joba’s best start of the year ending the worthless debate about him returning to the bullpen. I remember a starting pitcher similar in style to C.M. Wang who had success as a reliever. His name was and is Derek Lowe and the answer concerning the “missing piece” in the bullpen may ultimately be “in house” as the 5th starter issue sorts itself out.
With 18K’s in 19.2 IP, only 3 walks and a .219 BAA, Alfredo Aceves has demonstrated that he has the qualities one looks for in a consistent and reliable setup guy, most importantly a low WHIP (0.97) and the ability to dominate lefties who are only hitting .103 against him. People tend to forget that the Jeff Nelson/Mike Stanton combo was hardly dominant (see their 1998 numbers, for example), but rather simply did their jobs more often than not.
I think it’s fair to observe that Tex deserves a lot of credit for the record setting error free game streak. He has saved several certain throwing errors with his fine defensive play at 1B.
I assume that the quagmire of negativity which dominated the Yankee fan forum during the first 5 or 6 weeks of the season has subsided a bit and that the herds of “Fire Cashman, Fire Girardi, Joba Needs To Go To Pen, Jeter Is Overrated etc., have thinned considerably. Winning is truly the great elixir and it’s not surprising that teams that play consistently good baseball create the perception that they are hungry and have great team chemistry.
Joba pitched real well last night. He also pitched against a team minus sizemore and pronk. look at the line up the Indians put out there last night and tells most of the story. I am not taking anything away from Joba. It’s like all the met fans out there getting so excited about the way they have been playing. the Mets r beating the Nats, Marlins and pirates. With the Phils, yanks and cards coming up all my questions should b answered. For u yankee fans I really hope Joba keeps it going bc I happen to like the kid. just take a step back take a long deep breath and relax with Joba for a cy young already Ruhi. LOL
The Professor
Sizemore is hitting .225 career against the Yankees… I don’t think they are missing him that badly. Pronk is nasty, and I like when he is out of a lineup. The Indians can still hit the ball… Martinez, Choo, Peralta, Cabrera, DeRosa, and Garko all hit well.
Joba is developing, I am no way crowning him CY Young any time soon. What I see is a solid starter who is putting up good numbers, while still learning. Remember he went from A ball to MLB in one season…
Look at these numbers:
record 2-3 in 30 games, 6.49 era, 54 walks in 86 innings, 64 k’s in 86 innings, WHIP 1.814
record 8-7 in 36 games, 3.92 era, 79 walks in 149 innings, 82 k’s in 149 innings, WHIP 1.574
If those guys were on the Yankees right now would people be screaming to get them out of the rotation?
The first pitcher is Johan Santana The second pitcher is Roy Halladay.
No way am I saying Joba will be as good as either of those pitchers, but he has a chance to be VERY good… and he has got to be given the chance to do so… If he fails by the end of the year, put him back in the pen.
The Yankees are beating up the teams they are supposed to beat up. They have the best road record in the American League. They have a winning record against teams that are better than .500. The Yankees are getting healthy as well… Posada just came back, Bruney will hopefully be back soon…
Ruhi
And Joba was quick to give props to Posada for calling an excellent game which he often has and does. With all of the injuries last year and there were plenty obviously, the loss of Posada to me spelled the difference between making the postseason and coming up short. He and Jeter are essentially the co-captains of the team and the 2 position players whom they could least afford to lose for an extended period of time.
Bruney is another guy who looked like he was ready to be one of the key bridges to Rivera and once again, the in-house talent and depth of the pitching staff when healthy should give Girardi enough options to finish out close games on a routine basis.
Joba has received a disproportionate share of media attention not only because of his meteoric rise through the Yankee system and his success as a lock down reliever, but also his name. Wang received very little attention if memory serves and he is and has been a far better pitcher in pinstripes than guys like Ramiro Mendoza (5 WS rings), Jose Contreras, Javy Vazquez and Jeff Weaver among others.
Just as the Professor noted the absence of a couple of key bats for the Indians, I would also observe that the Yankee team that lost 5 games to Boston in the early is not even remotely similar to the one that will be taking the field against their so-called AL East rival in a couple of weeks. Not even close in terms of both players and more importantly, performance. Tex and Sabathia are the not the same guys we saw in April. Both are notoriously slow starters and had to adjust. It seems to me that both have and are playing like they can and should.
What was encouraging about Joba’s start was that he did not struggle early which has generally been his pattern so far this year. Pitching is as much mental as it is physical and perhaps? he is learning to harness his emotions at the beginning of games. That will ultimately be determined between the lines and perhaps Phil Hughes learned something as well watching his young teammate go through the lineup easily and under control in the first 3 innings.
If the Yanks and it’s a big “if” can get consistent quality starts from both Hughes and Chamberlain, it promises to be an interesting summer of baseball.
Grady sizemore is one of the best center fielders in MLB period. I hate when people say well he is so and so against this pitcher. Bullshit. every game is a differenet game, every at bat is another at. history means nothing to me at all. I think those numbers get to much attention. You also need to remember that johan and the Dr. didn’t have an eighth of the hype Joba has had in the beginning of their careers. You know me well enough and we go through this with the NFL. I dont care about history numbers. when a team loses sizemore and pronk they r hurting badly. choo unproven, carroll career bench player, shoppach, Derosa, etc. is a weak line up period. If the yankees had a line up that looked like that u and I would b watching classics to keep our sanity. LOL I have to ld u a million times, I really think Joba has the goods. I c it in Met fans all the time. U know me, I don’t get caught up in the fact that the mets beating the teams I mentioned in the earlier post. It is great to c the Mets beating the teams they are supposed to unlike years in their past. The bottom line is the mets suck though I love them, Joba is a talented pitcher for sure but, he faced a team full of swingers last night so don’t get to caught up just yet on the word Dominate with him just yet.
I couldn’t care less how good a center fielder he is… He only hits .225 against the Yankees over his career… That means he is basically out of the offensive equation. Could he make a difference, maybe, but when we look at his history against the Yankees, he comes up short.
Johan and Doc didn’t play in the worlds largest media market… You know the market that ran Lastings Milledge out of town for high fiving some fans…
NFL numbers and Baseball numbers are two different animals… MLB is all about what a player has done in the past. You know this, we have talked about it a ton.
It is a solid lineup Professor… Sure it isn’t a world beating lineup, but it is solid.
In the end, Joba is going to be in the rotation. He is a starter, has been his entire career sans 3 months when the Yankees gave him a taste and prepared him to hit the rotation,
Francesa went on for 10 minutes today about how good a starter Bronson Arroyo and his 5.17 ERA (in the NL) is, and that any team would love him in their rotation, Yet, Joba with his 3.7 ERA as a 23 year old learning the game should be in the pen…
Something does NOT compute there for me.
The best thing about baseball outside of the actual games is the arguments fans can have. Baseball has all these great numbers that we can look at and use to make predictions for the future.
You know me, I can and will talk baseball for days on end.
Ruhi
I am not arguing for Joba to go to the pen. I dont care about carrer numbers against the yankees. I can’t find his stats against joba. To say that cleveland has a solid line up starts to make me think I am not talking to u. U r insane to say it is a SOLID line up. U r defending then bc of the fan u r. if that again was the yankee line up then like i said we wouldn’t b having this discusssion bc they wud suck like they do.
“I can’t find his stats against joba.” I’ll help you out with that. For what it’s worth Hafner (0 for 4) and Sizemore (1 for 5) with a single are a combined 1 for 9 against Joba with 3 K’s and 0 RBI. That’s clearly not much of a sampling, but it is what it is.
Good pitching neutralizes good hitting and I find it somewhat curious and serendipitous that the Red Sox as of this coming Thursday will have played the Jays and Tigers 9 times this year without facing either Halladay or Verlander simply because of the way the rotations have evolved. Quite unusual!