Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Joba the human?

It has been hard to imagine the Yankees losing games once they reach the seventh or eighth with the lead. Closing out games has been about the only thing the Yankees have been able to do well and obviously most of that success or failure falls on Joba and Mo. My reaction was the same as most of the fans you saw on YES during the last inning and a half. Shock. Not anger or frustration, just shock. He has been so automatic in his first 36 innings that we forget that he's just a rookie and that he will get hit and give up some runs. It's inevitable.

At least a couple of older Yankees got back on track last night. Giambi might be showing some signs of life with that opposite field double that tied the game and Pettitte was finally solid after two rough starts in a row. He went 6.1, striking out six while only walking one.

Tonight we have CMW on the mound again. This time he'll be taking on Cliff Lee who has been disgusting this year with a 5-0 record and a minuscule 0.96 ERA. The scary thing is that he gave up three runs over six innings against Seattle in his last start and his ERA is still under 1.00. It also means his hot streak might be coming to an end, which would make sense since his career ERA against the Yanks is 6.28. It still has the makings of a pitchers duel and Wang will probably need to be as solid as he was against Sabathia 10 days ago.

5 comments:

Dennis said...

Is Joba still on a pitch count/innings limit? I worry that the Yankees are going to start running out of pitchers soon.

Joe said...

start to run out? pretty soon they are going to have to put melky in the bullpen. They are too young and too old all at the same time.

Peter said...

Joba has a limit but it is somewhere around 150 innings. I don't think they are too old or young. They have a decent balance, the problem is that for some reason over the past four seasons the Yankees have become a second half team. Their slow starts are becoming somewhat routine now. It'll catch up to them eventually.

Dan said...

I still feel like if the Yanks are still hovering around .500 near the All-Star Break that they will try to make a deal for some pitching. It's not necessarily a good idea, but Baby Steinbrenner will want to show his prowess as the Yanks new dictator.

Dennis said...

I think so as well, but there is not a lot available. Blanton at Oakland will cost too much (as far as prospects), the Indians won't trade Sabathia, Oswalt is probably untouchable, and anyone els eon the market is too old and ineffective to help them.

Only two real chances I can see. One is if Seattle falls further out of the race and looks to trade Bedard, but that is unlikely. The other is if Toronto falls out of the race and looks to trade Burnett, since he will probably be opting out this winter.