There Is No Such Thing As '07 Joba

Like many fans who adamantly believe that Joba Chamberlain was born as a relief pitcher and should stay in the bullpen forever and ever, Steve S. over at TYU looks at the one inning Joba pitched last night and sees him re-emerging as a dominating force:

The first batter he faced was Scott Sizemore, and he went 96-97-97-97 and struck him out on three swings and misses. The next batter was Gerald Laird, who managed to see 6 pitches and foul off two but struck out looking. The final batter was Adam Everett, who looked completely over matched, striking out swinging on 4 pitches. All totaled Joba threw 14 pitches and hit 98 three times during Adam Everett’s at-bat.

Scott Sizemore (OPS+ of 74 this season), Gerald Laird (35) and Adam Everett (28) - talk about a Murderer's Row! They've combined to strike out 20% of the time this year and have 14 extra base hits (two homers) in 231 plate appearances.

Questions were raised on air by Kay about the radar gun, which also seemed to have every Detroit reliever throwing somewhere between 97-101 MPH. But don’t shortchange that Tigers bullpen, it’s currently the best in Baseball and the best in the AL by a wide margin. Zumaya throwing triple-digit heat should surprise no one, he’s been doing it for years. Gameday had Joba sitting at the same 96-98 MPH with little variation pitch by pitch. It was for real, and hopefully was a sign of things to come.

Just because the Tigers' bullpen is the best in baseball doesn't mean they all throw extremely hard. The wind was blowing in from center all night long so the readings - be they from PitchFX or YES's radar run - were probably accurate in a technical sense but not indicative of how hard guys were really throwing or are likely to their next time out.

Jose Valverde usually sits around 95 and was living at 97-98. Phil Coke is typically around 92-93 was up to 95. Ditto for Boone Logan. Zumaya averages about 99 and was consistently in triple digits, running it up to 102. It was 50 degrees last night, there's no way all of these pitchers just happened to be pitching with significantly more velocity than normal. Is '06 Zumaya back too?

It was not "for real", just like it wasn't after the second game of the season. Examples of confirmation bias don't come much clearer than this. Joba struck out the side, and that's great, but he did with the wind at his back against two veterans who have never been able to hit and a rookie that has struggled to thus far.

Chamberlain is who he is now - a guy that throws about 95 (sometimes a little higher, sometimes lower), gets a lot of strikeouts but has somewhat spotty control. He's not all of a sudden going to become the pitcher he was for 24 innings one shoulder injury and three years ago, no matter how much we'd love him to.

Game 31 Recap

1. What Alex Rodriguez lacks in range he can often make up for with his arm. However, it was a throw that cost him an error and the Yanks two runs in the first inning. After Magglio Ordonez rapped a two out single to right, Miguel Cabrera hit a sharp grounder to A-Rod at third. Alex managed to knock the ball down, keep it in front of him, hop to his feet, do a full turn and fire to first in what should have been enough to get Cabrera, but he short hopped the throw. The ball bounced over Mark Teixiera and into the stands, leaving the Tigers will runners on second and third, still with two outs.

Rookie outfielder Brennan Boesch made the Yanks pay as he hit a hot shot just past the diving try of Teixeira, scoring both Cabrera and Ordonez and giving the Tigers an early 2-0 lead.

2. The Tigers tacked on another run in the second inning, but Sergio Mitre didn't have his defense to blame this time. Mitre began the frame by walking Scott Sizemore and then allowed a single to Gerald Laird. A sacrifice by Adam Everett moved the runners up and Sizemore scored on a ground out to Derek Jeter at short. 3-0 Tigers.

3. As he did in the first inning, Nick Swisher worked a one out walk in the third. Mark Teixeira took two balls and then turned on a fastball down and in, ripped it down the right field line and just inside the foul pole to make it 3-2. A-Rod followed with a single but was erased when he attempted to steal second on Brad Thomas' first motion but was picked off. Cano then grounded out to end the inning.

4. Johnny Damon hit his second home run of the year off of Sergio Mitre in the fifth. The first pitch he saw was a sinker right down the middle of the plate and Damon put one of his signature wristy swings on the ball, and deposited a few rows back in the right field seats. That was Mitre's 69th and final pitch of the night and he left the game with the Yankees trailing 4-2.

5. Boone Logan started off the seventh inning with a walk to Johnny Damon but got Magglio Ordonez to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. Logan wasn't out of the woods quite yet, however, as he walked Miguel Cabrera and gave up a triple to Broesche that extended the Tigers' lead to 5-2.

6. The Yankees loaded the bases with no one out during the 8th inning on consecutive singles by A-Rod and Cano and a walk by Jorge Posada, all off of Zumaya. Marcus Thames pulled a soft grounder to short stop that allowed A-Rod to score and every to move up one base safely and made the score 5-3.

At that point Jim Leyland called on Phil Coke to face Brett Gardner. Brett drove in Cano on a grounder to second to bring the Yankees within one and Randy Winn to the plate. Winn took a bad swing at a 2-0 pitch, popped it to third and passed the buck to Derek Jeter.

Leyland made another pitching change, this time calling on Ryan Perry to get the Tigers out of the jam. Jeter worked the count full before slicing a ball down the right field line that Magglio Ordonez made a nice sliding catch on, ending the inning and leaving the Yankees down 5-4. Since the count was full and there were two outs, Brett Gardner was going on contact, meaning that he almost certainly would have scored had Ordonez not made the play.

Jose Valverde came on to close out the game for the Tigers and struck out the side in the 9th. Game over as the Yanks dropped their second in a row after winning six straight.

IFs, ANDs & BUTs

• Sergio Mitre didn't pitch that poorly, all things considered. One of the four runs that he gave up was unearned (could have been two) and at one point he retired eight straight Tigers. On the other hand, he only threw 37 of his 69 pitches for strikes and allowed seven runners to reach base. David Robertson, Boone Logan and Joba Chamberlain combined for 3 2/3 innings of one run ball so almost all of the damage came on Mitre's watch. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it wasn't all that surprising.
  
  
• Brad Thomas did roughly as well Mitre; he lasted three innings and gave up two runs. It was right about what you would expect from two relievers making spot starts. It was a battle of the bullpens from there on out and the Tigers had been spotted two runs.
  
  
• The Yanks went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base. In the second inning they put two men on with no one out but failed to drive in either of them. In the sixth, they had A-Rod on third with one out and left the bases loaded without him scoring. In a game that you lose by one run, these are the things that you tend to point to after the fact.
  
  
• Eddie Bonine, who replaced Thomas, struck out Derek Jeter on a knuckleball for the first out of the fifth inning. PitchFX had it as a change up, but the YES cameras clearly showed a knuckleball grip and almost no rotation on the ball. It looked like he threw a few more of them during his 2 1/3 innings of work but that was the only one YES made a point of highlighting.
  
  
• With two outs in the 5th, Brett Gardner lost a high fly ball from Miguel Cabrera in the lights that should have ended the inning but instead went for a double. There was no blood in the inning and no error charged. It just looked like he lost it in the twilight and/or wind.
  
  
• There was a pregame ceremony to honor Ernie Harwell. Over 11,000 people filed by his body inside the gates of the park and several former Tigers including Al Kaline and Willie Horton were on hand to raise a flag sporting his initials that flew below the American flag in center field. The Tigers will wear a patch with a similar design for the rest of the season, much like the Phillies did in honor of Harry Kalas last year.
  
  
• It was brutally cold and windy in Detroit for a game in May. The game time temperature was 54 degrees and got colder as it progressed. The wind was gusting in from center, making the already cavernous dimensions of the park seem even deeper.
  
  
• Either the radar gun at Comerica was hot or the wind was helping out in during the later innings. Joel Zumaya was living in the triple digits with his fastball and Joba Chamberlain was in the upper 90's. Both those guys throw hard, but I doubt they were brining that kind of heat given how chilly it was.
  
  
• According to WPA, the Yanks never had greater than a 50% chance of winning the game but it really felt like they were going to take the lead in the eighth inning. The ball that Jeter hit looked to be ticketed for extra bases but the typically poor-fielding Ordonez made a great play. Thems are da breaks, I suppose.
  
  
• Jose Valverde was doing some odd shit after every strikeout he recorded. He'd walk over to the side of the mound, kneel down and take his hat off. When he got A-Rod swinging for the final out of the game, he did a couple of jumping fist pumps that would make the 2007 version of Joba Chamberlain blush. Not sure if this is par for the course for him, but it was pretty annoying to watch after how close the Yanks came to stealing this one back.
  
  
• Not about this game but conveyed on the broadcast: According to Kim Jones, an uncomfortable bed in Boston forced Alfredo Aceves to sleep on the floor. That likely contributed to the stiff back that forced him from Saturday's game. Fortunately, he's back on the mattress in Detroit. Hey, Alf, why don't you keep it on the bed from now on, okay?

Same time, same place tomorrow night. If the Yanks want to win this series and make it 10 out of their first 11, they are going to have to sweep the final three.

Game 19: Papa Hobo

Sweep up,
I been sweeping up the tips I've made,
I'm living on Gatorade,
Planning my getaway,
Detroit, Detroit. 

Thanks, Paul Simon! In five lines, you managed to take us from Boston to Detroit. I guess there was another song in my library that talks about sweeping. I have absolutely no idea what that song means, or who the fuck "Papa Hobo" is supposed to be, but that pretty much nailed it.

Anyway, tonight in the spacious confines of Comerica Park, CC Sabathia looks to stop the Yanks' 3 game slide before it starts getting really ugly. He opposes Justin Verlander who has given up 21 runs in his four starts on the year. After winning the AL Rookie of the Year in 2005 and finishing 5th in Cy Young Voting in '06, Verlander posted a 4.84 ERA last year and lost 17 games. 

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I was at Yankee Stadium in for Game 2 of the 2006 ALDS, the game in that series that Verlander started. It took place on a Thursday afternoon, but was supposed to have been played the night before. I got there pretty early that Wednesday, because it was the first Yankees playoff game I'd ever been to. Verlander had been throwing right alongside my seat down the third baseline, and I was close enough to hear him ask whoever he was tossing the ball with "Why the fuck no Yankees were on the field". Although it wasn't raining, the Yanks waited until gametime to announce that the game was delayed, even though it was pretty obvious the decision had already been made. Apparently they didn't give the Tigers a heads up either.  

I was alone, which kind of sucked, but I grabbed a few beers and a shitty poncho and hung out in my seat, just taking in the strange atmosphere. When nine o'clock rolled around, even though it had stopped raining, they called the game. Everyone was puzzled, but more so pissed that they had wasted their whole night. (It started torrentially downpouring about 45 minutes later)

I came back on Thursday, but the Stadium was at maybe 75% capacity. The emptiness and fact that it was a day game sort of robbed the playoff atmosphere. I still have a vivid memory of the 8th inning when Curtis Granderson robbed Gary Sheffield on a scorched line drive and then Joel Zumaya struck out Giambi and A-Rod through the shadows, touching 103mph on the Yankee Stadium radar gun. The Yanks lost 3-4 that day, dropped the next two in Comerica and I didn't get the chance to use my Game 5 tickets.  

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Of course, Zumaya and Verlander (who was also breaking 100 on the gun that day) are nowhere near the dominant flamethrowers they were that year. It makes you wonder if, in the era that baseball is in now where steroid use is presumably declining, anyone can last throwing that kind of heat. I would tend to think not. Your move, Strasburg.