Joba’s aggression
July 10, 2009, 12:19 pmFrom George King III (NY Post):
The Yankees have talked to Joba Chamberlain about being more aggressive in the strike zone and are curious to see if the advice is put into action tonight against the Angels in Anaheim.
“I don’t think Joba goes out there not trying to be aggressive,” manager Joe Girardi said of the right-hander who didn’t get out of the fourth inning in the last start Sunday against the Blue Jays.
“We talked about it and some times pitchers get out of whack and it’s hard to throw strikes,” the manager said. “It’s something we will continue to talk to him about.”
Hopefully, when Joba steps to the mound tonight, we’ll see him attack the zone. It will be interesting to see how he responds to all the chatter behind the scenes. He needs to show the team that he’s capable of making it out of the 5th inning, especially after Aceves’ outing against the Twins, which truly taxed the bullpen.
It’s been the same thing with this guy all season. He had consecutive starts earlier in the season where he got romped in the first inning, then pitched gems the rest of the way in each game, and everyone was saying it was because he started attacking the zone. He needs to keep that switch turned on or he needs to go away somewhere.
The bullpen needs to be fresh for tomorrow as well. With Pettitte there’s always a chance that the bullpen will need to go long.
Girardi needs to put blinders on Joba, tell him before the game that it is the 7th or 8th inning and to go out and let it all loose. Perhaps that will work and he can lengthen his starts. If that doesn’t work, then you know what I am going to say…….
Joba to the bullpen…..in Scranton!
There is something very wrong in either his head or his arm….because I don’t know where 99mph went.
I think it’s definitely something in his head. Just like last week, in the postgame Joba downplayed the poor outing, except this time there weren’t 10 runs to back him up.