Joba Chamberlain entered last night’s game against the Royals with a slim lead and the 9-1-2 hitters coming up. I did what I do these days when he comes into a game and half covered my face so that I could avoid watching if we happened to get the godawful version of Joba on the mound.
Things started off a little scary as the first out was a deep fly to right field. I could not at first tell if it was going over the wall, and honestly I don’t think Nick Swisher could either. It landed in his glove in the end and there was much rejoicing.
Now, if you hang around the internet during games you see a lot of “BABIP nooooooo!!” type comments. It’s sort of a catch all and overused by everyone, including me. I cannot, however, describe the results of the next two at bats as anything but the God of BABIP punching Joba in the gut.
First, Scott Podsednik bunted for a hit. Argh. Next, Jason Kendall hit a ball so slowly that it died halfway up the line to A-Rod for a “base hit”. It was not a bunt, Kendall had made such bad contact with the pitch that it barely moved the baseball, which happened to end up in no man’s land.
At this point the people around me started booing, and calling for Mariano to come into the game. It was pretty ridiculous.
I am not a Joba defender and I think there is more going on with him than just bad luck on balls in play, but last night was clearly a bizarre freak inning. I know that frustration boils over and all that but if there was ever a game where the drama wasn’t his fault, it was yesterday. Let’s not forget about the blown call at third base where everyone who was watching the game except Chad Fairchild (the 3B umpire) saw Alex Rodriguez tag Podsednik before he slid into the base.
He danced around Billy Butler a bit (or it looked like that from my seat), which was okay by me as he has an OPS of nearly .900 against RHP and took his chances with Jose Guillen. Guillen is a decent, but not great hitter and not at all patient. He quickly grounded out to short, inning over, crisis averted.
Anyway, my basic point here is that Joba didn’t suck. The first out was hit much, much harder than either of the two singles. The inning should have been over before he even faced Butler but the third bungled call of the game happened to go against the Yankees. It was an actual “bad luck” night, and those suck and are awful to watch and the timing was bad but they happen to everyone. It’s happened to Mariano at least once this year.
I know that a lot of people have lost all confidence with Joba, and I admit I don’t really have much because you never know which version is going to show up until the inning is in progress. But if you go crazy and overreact every time there’s a little blip it’s probably not very good for your health.
He didn’t suck last night. You’re right. It’d be nice though if we could say, he’s earned the 8th inning spot.
He didn’t suck last night. You’re right. It’d be nice though if we could say, he’s earned the 8th inning spot.