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One Bad Inning, Four Earned Runs and 12 Victims For Joba Chamberlain

Joba Chamberlain sucked last night...in the first inning.  His first inning line read  like this: 1 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 0 BB, 0 K 36.00 ERA. He gave up those four runs on five hits including a Jason Bay three run shot before recording his first out; a liner to Nick Swisher. After that first inning...he got good, really really good.

Over the next 4.2 innings, Joba would give up just one hit and two walks. In the meantime he was busy striking out 12 of the next 18 hitters he faced. He did a fantastic job of mixing up four pitches: four seamer, curveball, slider and change up, and used all of them to get strikeouts. One concern about Chamberlain in 2009 has been velocity. In 2007 and 2008, his fastball registered at an average speed of 95-97 miles an hour. In 2009, that is down to 92. Once again last night he was around 92 for most of the night, but the good news is as his pitch count went up, so did the velocity maxing out at 95.8

Star-divide

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via brooksbaseball.net


Overall, he only got around 7% swinging strikes, and by the third or fourth inning he was getting a little bit of the "benefit of the doubt" calls especially on the outer half to lefties. Nine of the 12 strikeouts were called third strike, however it was 12 strikeouts nonetheless.

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via brooksbaseball.net


The bad thing about racking up a lot of strikeouts is usually you're also racking up a lot of pitches and thus was the case for Chamberlain. He used 80 pitches in the 3rd, 4th and 5th innings and had to be lifted two outs into the sixth inning having already thrown 108 pitches. Keep in mind Chamberlain had yet to throw 95 pitches in a game this season. Joba may have been the loser in the game, but he made plenty of guys in that Boston lineup feel the same.

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So, successful outing? Hope for the future?

On a side note, I hate the way Brooks does pitch speed graphs. Why connect the dots? So confusing.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 6, 2009 3:15 PM EDT reply actions  

Warning Rays Reference

Scott Kazmir like outing. Terrible first inning, but good after. After a game like this I still can’t believe people think this guy belongs in the bullpen.

www.draysbay.com

by Tommy Rancel on May 6, 2009 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions  

What about Papelbon?

Wasn’t he originally supposed to be a starter? I would think that he’d be worth more (in terms of WAR) in an SP role than a RP role, and yet the glorified closer tag will probably never allow the Red Sox to make that move (if they wanted to, which they don’t).

"If Bowden was a general contractor, he'd build houses with nine bedrooms, six garages, no bathrooms, and half a roof."

by DyeLongJustice on May 6, 2009 5:04 PM EDT up reply actions  

He didn't want to either

I’m pretty sure when they made noises about moving him a few years ago he said he wanted to be the closer.

by Dan Turkenkopf on May 6, 2009 8:44 PM EDT up reply actions  

Papelbon is one of those rare 4 WAR type closers.

It’s basically him and Rivera right now. Plus the Red Sox really don’t need another starter with Buccholz, Bowden, Bard. This is not to say Joba couldn’t be a 4 WAR closer, but the Yankees need him as a starter.

www.draysbay.com

by Tommy Rancel on May 7, 2009 8:15 AM EDT up reply actions  

or we hope so

even rival fans wouldn’t want to see a guy who walked twice as many people as he k’d as a starter in the minors to start. for our sanity’s sake.

by RollingWave on May 8, 2009 2:04 AM EDT up reply actions  

So what you are saying is

He had a good outing but got lucky on the strikeout calls? I watched this game with my laptop open as I usually do to look at the gameday pitchfx. I can distinctly remember 3 strikeouts that were definetly not strikes. There were others that were arguable and I am ok with going either way. The homeplate ump gave him the benefit of the doubt for a bunch of those.

More importantly how come he is not getting suspended for the intentional fastball to Jason Bay’s Back?

by drabidea on May 7, 2009 11:24 AM EDT reply actions  

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