Game 53 Wrap-Up: The Formula

Wednesday night's finale against the Baltimore Orioles showed us once again why you should not touch a winning formula.  LHP Andy Pettitte (5-5, 4.11 ERA) opposed Jeremy Guthrie (2-6, 3.64 ERA).  The game featured very good pitching from both starters, especially Pettitte who needed a big win so we could all breathe a sigh of relief.  Pettitte's only glitch was a two run homerun that he surrendered in the third to the red hot Morra.  The Yankees would quickly erase that deficit with another bomb by Giambi that once again cleared the ballpark.  The struggling Yankee's captain hit a sacrifice fly to left field in the fifth to score Melky, which gave the Yanks a 3-2 lead.  Johnny Damon added the final run of the game in the ninth when he beat out a ground ball to Kevin Millar.  

The main story of this game was undoubtedly the continuing "Joba Saga," if you will.  Chamberlain was supposed to relieve Pettitte and throw 50-55 pitches.  Because of Andy's strong outing, Joba came in to pitch in the seventh, with two outs.  He struggled a bit, allowing two base runners before recording the final out.  He then entered the eighth and displayed his usual dominance.  His fastball clocked in at 98 MPH.  Chamberlain would not pitch the ninth, as the Yankees elected to bring in the ageless wonder Mariano Rivera to record his 13th save and lower his ERA to a stunning 0.39.  Joba would finish his pitching in the bullpen.

The controversial argument regarding Chamberlain becoming a starting pitcher can once again resume.  It's coincidental that we saw two very opposite pitching performances in consecutive nights.  Tuesday's gave featured the terrible underbelly of the Yankees bullpen, which if not for Rivera, wouldn't even have made it to extra innings.  In stark contrast, Wednesday's game featured a dominant 1 1/3 innings from arguably the best set-up man in baseball.  Keep Joba where he is!  Starting pitching is going to be available by the all-star break.  Should the struggling Cleveland Indians fall too far out of the race, they will probably trade ace C.C Sabathia.  Also, the Oakland A's will most likely be shopping Rich Harden and Joe Blanton.  When you have a part of your team that is completely dominant, you don't break it up!  Instead, you build around it.  And with the Yankees resources, this shouldn't be an overwhelmingly difficult task.