Saturday, July 19, 2008

Joba Dominates in Yankees Win

Smelmooo and I attended a great and looonnng 5 hour, 12 inning Yankees-A's game today. The Yankees won 4-3, so the day ended on a positive note, but it sure took a long time (446 pitches from both teams) for the Yankees to get their 52nd win of the season.

For the 2nd time this season, I got to see Joba Chamberlain pitch in person and he was phenomenal as usual, pitching 6 strong innings giving up 1 run and striking out 8 batters. In his 6 innings (18 outs) of pitching he directly contributed to making 12 of the 18 outs for the team. Along with his 8 K's, he started 1 double play and had two others broken up on Fielders Choices. That's solid!
My favorite part of the day for Joba though, came on the very first batter (Ryan Sweeney) of the game. With the count 1-2, Sweeney stepped out of the batters box and called time out as Joba was halfway through his windup. Joba didn't show that he was pissed off, but on the very next pitch he plunked Sweeney on the leg.
It's that kind of thing that I love about Joba.
It's the very same kind of "no one is going to screw with me attitude" that Roger Clemens - sans the HGH and steroids injections - brought to the Yankees in the late 1990s. And it's that kind of attitude that is going to make Joba the Yankees ace for the next decade.
Today's win for the Yankees ended when Jose Molina came through in the clutch by taking an emotional hit by pitch -- insert tongue in cheek here -- with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th inning.
A HBP to win the game is something that I've never seen before in a game and it definitely wrapped up a memorable last visit for me to the House that Ruth Built.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am sure Roy Halladay is not fearing that Joba will be beating him for CGs this season. All of 6 strong innings. WOW. Great. Gallagher did the same thing during that game (albeit a little less smooth).