Saturday, July 25, 2009

Joba Keeps the Yanks Rolling

Joba Chamberlain continued where he left off against the Tigers, dominating the hapless Oakland A's who were without Matt Holliday after his recent move to St. Louis. Joba had a rough start, but he settled down and pitched effectively after the first, only getting into trouble in the fifth before he struck out Mark Ellis and Eric Patterson with runner son second and third.

It's the first time all season that Joba has pitched this well in back-to-back starts and the first time in his career that he pitched into the seventh inning in consecutive starts.

It took a few innings, but eventually he got the support from the bats against an electric Brett Anderson. Like Vin Mazzaro on Thursday night, Anderson was filthy in the early going, striking out four of the first six Yankees to come to the plate. The Yanks persevered though, and eventually tagged the 21-year-old for four runs. They tacked on four more against the A's bullpen.

Phil Coke bailed out Joba in the eighth and after the Yankees put the game away in the bottom half Dave Robertson ended the game.

The only concern to come out of the game is that if Joba keeps pitching this well what are the Yankees gonna do with his innings limit, which in all likelihood sits around 160 innings. It may take some outside-the-box thinking and hopefully I will having something on that by Monday.

Little bit of history in the game as well as Derek Jeter passed Ted Williams on the all-time hits list. I know, I know Williams missed a ton of years in his prime because he was off winning a World War and killin' commies, but it's still cool to see the Captain pass that kind of a legend.

Tomorrow brings Gio Gonzalez vs. Andy Pettitte. The Yanks would do themselves well to continue this beatdown of the lowly A's, especially considering their pitiful hitting and their newfound lack of Matt Holliday. A sweep would seem to be on the menu.

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