Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Should We Still Have Confidence in Joba?

At this point, the sight of Joba running to the mound from the bullpen should elicit one response from any Yankees fan and one response only: "Ah, [insert favorite expletive]."

We never really saw Joba carry any of his Joba-the-reliever mojo to his role as a starter. We are beginning to see, however, that he's carried plenty of his I'm-not-much-of-a-starter into his new role as seventh inning guy. I can't really wrap my head around it, but this is not the same Joba who was lights out in the eight inning two years ago. This is Joba melting down because of midges, only without the midges.

What gives? Am I overreacting? Or is it time to leave our confidence in this kid at the door (at least until after we win our 27th championship)?

6 comments:

Rob A from BBD said...

I don't have any confidence in him. Actually, I should say I have a lot less. I still think he can be useful, but not overpowering. It's not because of anything the Yankees did to him either, he just hasn't been the same since going past 110 innings. I think he hit a wall.

Fred Trigger said...

If the redsox can win with jiminey cricket playing shortstop and having Eric Gagne as a setup man, I think the yankees will be just fine with Joba coming out of the pen. Girardi overmanaging, however, is a whole nother story.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

Been a while, Fred. I hear Francona's on the hotseat in Boston, maybe we could borrow him for the series.

Big West said...

hi guys, i'm glad you put up this post. instead of my favorite expletive: "me cago en la puta madre," (which is more phonetically pleasing than an expletive); all that came to mind was george steinbrenner's awesome "fat toad" comment about Irabu, which isn't a good thing at all, if you're any of the following:

A) Joba
B) a Yankee Fan
C) a toad

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

That's a great expletive, I'm not going to lie.

SA Yankee fan said...

I am actually not worried about Joba. I don't think he is in hte best shape right now but he did what he was supposed to do this season, stay healthy, rack up the innings and learn more about pitching.

He had some good and bad games but that is to be expected from a young pitcher. The bottom line is, next year he can hit close on 200 innings in the regular season without any issues so there is less uncertainty, the hype will be lower and that is always a good thing and he has another year of experience.