Thursday, October 1, 2009

Joba Knows His Role This October

From Mark Feinsand:
"If they want me to fold towels, I'll fold towels," said Chamberlain. "I don't really care. Whatever they see fit, I want to help this team win in any role that I'm in."
Well, at least he accepts it. Hey, he could also put whip cream on towels if there are any walk-offs. So he's got that going for him, which is nice.

Here's some more post game quotes from Joba:
"In the playoffs, (relieving) is the only thing I've done, so that's the only thing I know," said Chamberlain, who was booed upon exiting last night's game. "At this point, I don't think there's any role I could be in that I'm not comfortable with."

...

"I know what the end goal is and I understand what I've done and the situation I've put myself in," he said. "You set yourself up to do the things you need to do, then let the chips fall where they may."
“It could have gotten a lot worse than it was, but it was just a lack of fastball command from the get-go,” Joba said. “You try to take a positive and look at the things you did OK; it could have been a lot worse, but we made some pitches when we had to.”
What pitches were those?

And from Girardi:

"It was not a good start," said Girardi, who tried to take some positives out of the 91-pitch performance. "We got his pitch count up, which was a good thing, but we didn't get his pitch count up in the amount of innings we wanted, so that's a bad thing. I would not consider this a quality start."

Following the game, Girardi wasn't prepared to make any of those decisions, although he may have hinted at his plans by mentioning several times that Chamberlain has had superb results pitching out of the bullpen during his brief career.

"We have a little bit of time to think about exactly what we're going to do, but he's had a lot of success out of the bullpen," Girardi said. "I can't guarantee that he's going to revert back to his old form if we do put him in the bullpen, but he does have a lot of confidence coming out of those gates."

Here's some stats to chew on... Chad Gaudin since August 12th: 2-0, 3.54 ERA, 40.2 IP, 40 H, 16 ER, 20 BB, 32 K, and the Yanks are 6-2 in those games.

Joba since August 6th: 2-5, 7.69 ERA, 45.2 IP, 62 H, 39 ER, 26 BB, 35 K, and the Yanks are 6-4 in Joba's games.

If Girardi is basing his decision on stats, which he probably should, then this one's a no brainer. A good idea, brought up by reader "Nutball Gazette" is that the Yankees give him an inning in relief this weekend and see what he can do coming out of the pen. I think they should make sure that if they do this he should face Tampa's better hitters as opposed to the three scrubs at the bottom of their order. They need to see if he can get quality hitters out coming out of the pen, because he hasn't been able to do it as a starter, at least not recently.

18 Comments:

JP said...

I thought Gaudin has made 7 starts and the Yankees won all 7? I think I heard that on the Kay show.

How was Bruce Greg?

Greg Cohen said...

Gaudin has made six starts and they've won them all. The two times he came in as a reliever they lost. Unless baseball reference is wrong.

Bruce was great, I was very impressed by the performance. I'm not a huge Springsteen fan, but he lived up to the hype. Great show.

Mike B. said...

I'm still not big on Joba, despite that performance against the Red Sox.

The guy might very well kill us. And that's a shame.

Oh well...let's see what ahppenes.

Mike

Anonymous said...

Joba should not touch a baseball in the postseason.

JP said...

I havn't been to a concert in so long. Last one I saw was Rage Against The Machine when they reunited for a few shows.

JP said...

btw Greg did you happen to catch Mauer's sign stealing last night after the concert?

Greg Cohen said...

No I missed that. What happened?

JP said...

go check out RAB they have a vid.

He was stealing and relaying signs, stealing signs is something I don't like.

Greg Cohen said...

Just saw it, I don't have a problem with it. It goes on far more than any of use probably would suspect, and it's been happening since signs were invented. I just hope when the Yankees do it they're not as obvious.

Greg Cohen said...

I'll have a post up on it in five minutes.

JP said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bruceb (not bruce.s) said...

An excellent idea, indeed, from Nutball Gazette. We need to know if Joba can still pitch effectively from the pen so why not use him for one inning Fri and Sun? That way we will at least discover whether he still has the velocity and control to be the 7th or 8th inning guy. I hate to say it but I have come to the conclusion that either Joba's a complete fruit and nut case or he's smoking weed before games. He's so over-hyped on the mound that his mannerisms and movements convey anxiety rather than confidence. I have always maintained that his personality is far-better suited to being a reliever than a starter. The question now is can Girardi trust him to perform either role?

-pc said...

I can't help but think that all the "Joba Rules" have gotten into his head. I'd worry about putting him in the pen for the playoffs because the chemistry of Bruney, Coke, Hughes, Rivera could be thrown off. Let him fold towels this year and stop screwing with him and give him a role in spring training next year that he can stick with.

JoeV said...

Good idea to test Joba from the pen this weekend. If it doesn't work out, he can fold towels.

Mike B. said...

I meant to say let's see what "happens."

Perhaps I'll proof-read one day....

Mike

Anonymous said...

Joba should be the 4th starter. I dont care how he pitches good or bad against the kansas city royals. That really doesn't matter when you are playing in the postseason.

Gaudin will get destroyed in the alcs. So either way Joba will pitch that game.

Anonymous said...

Joba just threw 91 pitches. He is not going to pitch inning this weekend out of the bullpen.

Greg Cohen said...

Isn't a pitcher's normal throw day in between starts? He should use his throw day to get into a game. I've seen pitchers do it before.