Joba also does have an a history with arm injuries, and if anything that worries me. But you can't throw him in for a 40 plus inning increase because he didn't excel right away, he's still gotta be nurtured like all young arms in this league. Kyle Drabek is going to be at best a 3rd starter in this league, and he's being brought up the same way. Man I wish I was born when pitches threw 10-15 plus complete games a year, I also hate the whole pitch/inning count. It's really turned pitchers into bitches compared to what they once were.
When Halladay is pitching like that, u cant do anything but tip ur hat and get ready for the next one
Has Joba been good recently? Obviously not. Is this a reason to start to question his ability to perform as a starter? No. Not unless your a blithering idiot. Joba has shown that he CAN be a dominant starter. The issue is consistency. He obviously has shown difficulty in maintaining any dominance. Why? I don't know. Any number of reasons come to mind. Less velocity than he had last year as a starter (due to the injury? mechanics?). Less command. Less aggressiveness. I don't know what the answer is. Maybe he needs to drink less. I have no idea. But if you think that moving him back to the pen is the solution, I can only wonder whether you're capable of tying your shoes without assistance, because that is some serious dumb on display.
I feel like reading threads on these forums make me stoopiter. Joba is a starter. If you don't understand why, you don't understand baseball. Stop reading the damned newspapers that make you into a blubbering idiot mouthpiece sheep and start thinking with your own brain. Joba came out of the All-Star break and was unhittable. I wouldn't be surprised if all of this moving around is what caused him to be inconsistent lately. That means the problem will go away when the situation settles and he gets back into a groove. What the Yankees are doing is smart. They're protecting an asset, which is good business.
Last 6 starts (after they started screwing with him):26 innings, 24 runs, 37 hits, 17 walks First 3 starts after the break: 21.2 innings, 2 runs, 8 hits, 8 walks nuff said..although I fully expect Cappy to come in and say why this is just a mirage
So what would you do with him? Make all his starts without regard to innings? Or put him in the pen and call up Igawa or some other scrub to be the fourth starter?
What I noticed is after the all star break, Joba was throwing hard like he was last year. Fast ball topping off at 96, 97 mph but hitting 94 consistently and his slider was extremely sharp. Lately, he's been in the low 90's...kinda like earlier in the year. I think something may be up with his shoulder and/or mechanics. Something just doesn't seem right I think he's a starter and eventually whether it's in a year, two or maybe in a month when post season starts he will be a dominant one. However, if his success comes from throwing hard and he can't throw hard consistently over the course of a season then a move back to the pen has to be something to evaluate. Not now tho, and definitely not until 2011 at the earliest.
Actually, I don't care what they do with him as long as he isn't the 4th starter in the playoffs. If he is we are in huge trouble. Can't afford to burn out the pen in one of those games just so you can make Cashman out not to be a fool.
Jesus Christ. If you want to take a dig at me for something, how about basing it at least somewhat in reality? Of course he's been shitty. Maybe if you dislodged your head from your ass long enough to read my post above, you'd have noticed that I explicitly said that he hasn't been good lately. Honestly, dude... just give it up. But it's not like his ineffectiveness is only just now rearing its head. From the beginning of the year until June, he was adequate. Not great. And not consistent, but adequate. Certainly not what we saw from him last year (as a starter). Until June 1st, his WHIP was 1.44. And the problem was mostly that he was walking people left and right. Then he really struggled from the end of June into July. (WHIP of 1.73... that's pretty bad, on the whole.) Then he came back after the break and had three great starts. (WHIP of 0.75) Now he's had a handful of ineffective starts again (WHIP of 2.07). Again, the problem is that he's walking guys all over the place. So I don't see why you'd even want to bring my name into this, but if you're that bored, why don't you go try playing in traffic instead?
His velocity post ASB really isn't that much different... but I agree that his velocity might have something to do with it. But I don't think it's something that is fixed by a move to the pen, because as a starter in 2008, he'd sit 95 and touch 99. Check out this fastball velocity chart for Joba. The bars show the range of velocity in that game. The dot is the mean velocity for a game. You can see where he became a starter (when the lines started becoming evenly spaced). You can see where he was injured in 2008 (the gap between outings). And, most importantly, you can see that his velocity has not been the same since he's come back, only once averaging over 95 again. And his average velocity in 2009 is all over the place. But it's significantly lower. His average fastball in many games this year was slower than the slowest fastball he threw in some of those 2008 games a a starter, prior to the injury. That said, I think it's MOSTLY mechanics. Because if you look at the velocity of his other pitches, they haven't changed nearly as much. Here's his slider: Here's his curve:
He had one start where he threw his curve in the 90s? Not to be a stickler, that's great info. And I think his fastball will get better as he does improve his mechanics, like you said. Pitchers always learn little tweaks in their delivery that gives them a few MPH on their pitches, and Joba needs time to learn his craft being only 23. He needs to control his emotions when he gets in a jam too. Joba made it to the MLB because of his passion, but that same wearing your heart on your sleeve emotion gets to him when he gets in trouble. You can see it in his body language.
On a positive spin I am glad to see Girardi is resting everybody now and not 3 days before the playoffs start like Torre always did in his last 7 years.
Three bases loaded walks in one inning; two by Melancon and one by Mitre. I wonder what the record is. Second pitching change of the inning. Towers coming in to face his former team. 11-5 Toronto.
0-2 count to Ruiz, Towers' first batter, and Towers hit Ruiz in the face. Another run scores. Millar comes in for Ruiz. Toronto has three bases loaded walks in the fifth here. Now Towers hit Ruiz in the face to score another run. Towers once hit Jeter, and Clemens (another ex-Yankee and Blue Jay) retaliated by hitting Rios.
there's a deranged lunatic next to the radio booth shouting inanities. You hear him on the broadcast. Waldman and Sterling have been complaining about it the whole game. Waldman: "You better shut that crowd mike off. There's some vile language going on down there. What happened here? This used to be such a nice place..." Lind is the only Blue Jay in the starting lineup without a hit. He's also the guy I picked on Beat the Streak. Ugh.
