Marc Carig of the New Jersey Star-Ledger has the story:
OAKLAND, Calif. – Joba Chamberlain escaped during the All-Star break, returning home to Nebraska and blocking out all talk about baseball. It worked so well for the talented right-hander, who emerged from the hiatus and pitched perhaps his three best consecutive starts of the season.
But Chamberlain’s last three starts have yielded in a 6.75 ERA during that span, which is why Yankees manager Joe Girardi ordered the pitcher to relax with his extra time. As part of the Joba Rules, the pitcher will have eight days’ rest heading into his next scheduled start, Tuesday against the Rangers.
Instead of using the extra days off to throw, Chamberlain has laid low.
“We told him during this extra stretch to just take a couple of days off,” Girardi said. “You don’t necessarily have to pick up a ball, just take a couple of days off then we’ll get you on your five-man schedule. I just told him to relax.”
Makes sense to me, and you wonder why it was ever done any differently. Although Joba and the Yanks may have wanted to stay on the exact same schedule as he did when he was pitching every 5 days, but clearly that wasn’t working for him. This is them recreating what happened during the All Star break, total rest followed by his regular routine. The extra days of total rest should add some giddy up to his fastball, and getting back to the usual starter’s routine should help him stay in better rhythm. I’m just glad they’re figuring it out now, as opposed to having it take them by surprise come October, when he would almost certainly be working on extra rest.
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0 Responses to Yanks changing Joba's schedule between starts
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Whatever works for Joba. I’m glad they have him skipping starts, it’ll keep him strong and probably healthy for the long run. But they need to find a routine that works and stick with it. The worst thing for these guys is uncertainty.
The skipping of starters is just a means to an end so he can pitch and start in the postseason, if anything all the skipping is hurting his development for the future and it needs to become a little more clear cut at least to Joba, you could tell it affected him not starting and then starting and not starting and then starting.
I love Joba, I disagreed with the starter role however with this year’s emergence of Hughes in the set up role, the loss of Wang and Robertson’s dominace, as of late, it is a moot point.
I was salivating to see him in Bean Town matching up against the Youkilis!!!
Whatever works, at this point, we need him fresh in October…
I can’t believe someone still wants Joba to be a set up man!!! So you want Hughes in the rotation next year and Joba in the pen? Please, Hughes is going to struggle huge once back in the rotation and Joba has never had an above a high 3 ERA for more than one game in his career as a starter…. Hughes had a 5+ ERA as a starter career.
Why would a 23 y/o kid need to be so babied? I mean he can only throw hard if he has requiste time off? How is it Brett Anderson and Clayton Kershaw can throw hard without being treated like a 17 y/o high school girl?
Kershaw’s fastball fluctuates just as much as Joba’s does so you have no idea what you are talking about and it’s the same with Price…. He doesn’t need time off to throw hard he needs time off to continue being a starter this year with out exceeding his inning limit.
Because studies done by Dr James Andrews with years and years of medical data have shown this is the best chance to keep a young arm healthy. Pitching breaks down you arm, either slowly or quickly depending on your mechanics and your body type. Until a pitcher is 25 years old, his body isn’t fully mature yet, so they try to keep his workload down and give him plenty of time between starts to recover.
The #1 way pitchers get hurt is from fatigue. When the muscles of the arm and shoulder are tired, they carry less of the load and the tendons and ligaments take their place. That’s how guys get hurt. By keeping him strong and giving him less than he can handle, you make that much less likely to happen.
All of that being said, it’s still possible Joba gets hurt. Some doctors will tell you that there’s only so many pitches in your arm, no matter what you do. If nothing else, they are delaying the day he breaks down and hoping to get some championship performances out of him in between. With a 7 game lead, I think its something they can comfortably afford to do.