Press Having a Field Day

Okay, so the Yankees lost again but at least we finally witnessed the young phenom, Joba Chamberlain, have his first major league start (he was facing Roy Halladay, give the kid some slack). Now, what has bothered me since Joba was taken out of the game has been the way that the media has addressed the situation, failing to provide context to the story.

Even Jeff Passan has fallen into the trap:

What came, of course, was a letdown, though let’s be honest: Anything short of brilliance would have left a sour taste. Chamberlain happened to be Eddie Gaedel short, lasting 2 1/3 innings, walking four, giving up a pair of runs and sitting on the bench as the Yankees took the business end of a 9-3 beating from Toronto.

First off, the Yankees were intent on limiting Joba to about 65 pitches and when he hit the mark, he was done. Secondly, that’s just it, Joba Chamberlain was taken out, not because he was ineffective, but because he was on a pitch count of 65 pitches. What starting pitcher that you know can use 65 pitches and still go very far? If Joba had been able to use 15 pitches an inning (which would have meant that he wasn’t facing any jams in his first big league start), then he would have tossed about 4 innings of baseball. Is that a large difference from 2 1/3? I guess if you’re the media it is because bashing Yankee youngsters is a cool thing to do nowadays.

Also, the Blue Jays knew that Joba would be out after 65 pitches so they decided to take anything and everything since it would ultimately signal his demise. Does that ever happen when someone is pitching regularly? Yes, hitters take pitches all the time but not to that extent because they know a pitcher can be out there throwing 120-130 pitches (203,000 if you’re Dice-K). The Jays knew this kid would be in there for about 65 pitches and knew that if they could take enough pitches once the game started then they could wait him out and rail on the Yankee BP (which happened).

Finally, this was Joba’s first big league start and he has been the most hyped figure in all of baseball (Yankee baseball at that). He didn’t start off with little fan fare like a Johnny Cueto or an Edinson Volquez (Clayton Kershaw was pretty hyped and he delivered although he too had a rough first inning). Joba was obviously amped and threw too many pitches in the first inning, but in this case, too many would be too much in the grand scheme of it all.

Just reading headlines that say “Chamberlain gone after 2 1/3″ bother me because a headline is just so detached from the reality of the situation. Joba will continue to go through the bumps and bruises that come along with being on a strict pitch count for his first few starts, however, after that, I’m expecting him to turn it up a notch and gun it home. Remember, with every pitch in the first inning the panic probably set in as he knew that the pitch count was real and would limit his opportunity. Imagine that pressure? I guess I have to pose that question since no other media outlets are doing it.