Tagged: Joba Chamberlain

2009 or 5 AD

If you look at your calendars you will clearly see the year we are in is 2009, or for “The sky is falling” Yankees fans, 5 AD.  That would be five years After Devastation. 
Last time I checked this year’s roster was a little different from the roster in 2004.  Last time I checked the starting pitching wasn’t as shaky as the San Andreas Fault.  Last time I checked the lineup was about as solid as its been in quite some time.  Last time I checked, I weighed 195 pounds.  I need to get back to the gym.
Look, I know as well as everyone else that the spector of 2004 popped into every Yankee fans head as soon as Nick Swisher’s pop out with the bases loaded was squeezed at shorstop on Thursday night.  The difference between 2004 and 2009 fans?  Pitching and defense. 
Mark Teixeira doesn’t have the numbers with his bat.  Although he has hit a walk off home run, and helped the Yankees claw their way back in Game 5 Thursday night with his bases clearing double in the 7th.  The intangible that Tex brings to this team more than his hitting right now, is his glove.  He has saved more than a handful of games during the regular season and a couple of post season games as well.  
Now the pitching.  Game 6 in 2004 you starter was Jon Lieber.  Game 6 in 2009 is Andy Pettitte.  Advantage 2009.  Game 7 if necessary your starter will be CC Sabathia.  Game 7 in 2004 was Kevin Brown with Javier Vasquez on deck.  Yuck. 
The bullpen has been unreliable as of late, but the thing you have to remember is, the Angels are a great team.  Phil Hughes will get big outs.  Joba Chamberlain will get big outs.  They got big outs all season long, and there time will come again in Game 6 and Game 7.
Sure the Yankees could have wrapped this up in four.  Sure the Yankees could have wrapped this up in five.  They didn’t.  We are here for a Game 6.  The past is the past. 
By the way, all you Yankee haters, and you know who you are, why not succumb?  Join the Darkside.  Resistance is futile.  Wait, that was Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Great, now I’ll have the Trekkies as well as everyone who hates the Yankees on my case.  Such is life.
Also for the non-believers 2009 playoffs (thanks for the research YES Research staff):

Yankees                                                                    Opponent

 

Wins                       6                                               2

Runs                     43 (5.4 /G)                                  23   (2.9 /G)

AVG                     .257 (76–296)                              .241 (71–295)

HR                          14                                               4

 

ERA                       2.52 (22 ER – 78.2 IP)                   4.60 (39 ER – 76.1 IP)

 

The Lighthouse of Hope

pedro250_061909.jpgPedro a Yankee?
Surely, you can’t be serious. I am serious and don’t call me Shirley. The Yankees had someone in the Dominican Republic watching, “Mr. Who’s Your Daddy” himself. Should we read anything into this? Well, according to the New York Daily News, no we shouldn’t. They reported that someone close to the Yankees believed the team was just doing a solid for agent Fern Cuza. He also represents Mariano Rivera. I highly doubt Pedro Martinez will EVER come to the Yankees. After what he pulled with Don Zimmer, and sending Derek Jeter and Alfonso Soriano to the hospital in the same day. Oh by the way, he and Jorge Posada aren’t the best of friends either. That would be an interesting battery to watch. It would kind of be like Jerry pitching to Tom, before the cartoon went absolutely stupid when they became friends, ugh.

Yankees drop two to the Nationals – World to end – read all about it!
I thought about this a lot today. Does it absolutely stink on ice that the Yankees dropped two of three to the worst team in the major leagues? Does it reek of month old milk left out on the table for a week, when three starters from said worst team, and the worst bullpen in the league come into your house and own you? The answer to both of these questions is yes, but this is baseball. If you have played it at any level in your life, you know as well as anyone, that you are going to go through spells where you don’t hit worth a lick and you cant pitch to save your life. Right now that’s exactly what’s going on with the Yankees.

We are all guilty of being Veruka Salt, the spoiled little girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The old one with Gene Wilder, I refuse to even acknowledge they made a new one.  We are all running around and screaming, “But, Daddy, I want a Yankees’ win nowwwwwwwwww!”

There are 96 games left. 96. Again, let me reiterate, I am not excusing this team from taking a beat down by the Nationals. All I am saying is take a chill.  It took the perfect storm for the Nats to come in here and do what they did. Sometimes baseball teams all have some hitting issues at once. The Yankees just picked the wrong team to go cold against. This is a team if you remember that won eight in a row.  I know they are 3-6 in their last nine. I know the 3-6 could be 2-7 or 1-8. It happens. It’s baseball. The 1998 Yankees – one of the best teams of all time – at one point of the season lost 11 of 19 games. Did the world end? We are here right?

They lost to the White Sox who finished 80-82. They lost to the A’s who finished 74-88. They lost to the Mariners who were 76-85. They also lost to the Twins who finished 70-92.

We all have to learn like Joshua from Wargames.  The world almost ended in that 80’s classic because of snot nosed computer geek Matthew Broderick, the world is not going to end because the Yankees lost a series to the Nationals.  Besides, it’s not 2012 yet.  The waters may seem troubled, but look to the “Lighthouse of Hope.”  That would be my bald head.  All of you fans are out on a boat and all you see are choppy waters in the “Sea of Negativity” that is this area.  You see huge waves about to crash on top of you and the Yankees season.  96 games.  The ship your on has plenty of time to right itself and it starts tonight in Florida.  

Ninety-six games.  Look to the lighthouse and let me bring you back in to seeing the glass as half full.

Joba Chamberlain – Again Chris?  Really?
Sorry, just a couple of things.  I just have a couple of questions.  Why is it that Phil Hughes, who is supposed to be a starter, is working out of the bullpen now and no one has a problem with that?  Meanwhile Joba continues to not be lights out in his starts and he gets a free pass?   “Chien-Ming Wang is killing the bullpen!”  This can be heard echoing all over the radio in this area.  Joba isn’t?  I love how people want to bury a guy who won 46 games in two and a half years.  Yeah lets just throw him on the scrap heap.  Watch how fast other teams come in like a flock of seagulls (not the haircut) to pick him up.  If you are going to be patient with Chamberlain, give Wang the same respect.  Notice how I didn’t say Joba should be back in the bullpen.

One more thing – just curious – do you know how many games are left in the season?  Here’s a hint, sing 99 bottles of beer on the wall, but make believe you’ve already took down and passed around three.

Squish the Fish.

End of Transmission  

The Great Debate

Well Yankee fans, both sides of the Joba debate got exactly what they wanted last night in Cleveland. Chamberlain started, and pitched through the eighth, bridging the gap to Mariano Rivera.

I have to stand my ground though on my stance to put him back in the bullpen. As Ozzie Guillen said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “I’d rather face him once every five days then every night.” You get the idea.

John Flaherty talked about this very topic in Flash Forward this week on YESNetwork.com. Find out what the Yankees catcher thinks about the Joba situation by clicking here.

All of you out there who are sick of this topic, well I’m sorry. Some people like to beat Brangelina or Brittany to death in the figurative sense, I am in the business of beating the starter-reliever thing to death. Like it or not, it will be around the whole season. I suggest you get used to it.

There are times this season Chamberlain left you looking at the glass as half empty, and other times like last night, he left you looking at the glass as half full. When he was a reliever the glass was overflowing.

The more Chamberlain is inconsistent, and the closer he inches to his pitch counts every night and his innings limit for the season, this Great Debate will continue to rage on.