Life's a Pitch

Good pitching always beats good hitting, and that’s just how tonights going to go. C.C Sabathia and Cliff Lee, the two previous AL Cy Young award winners lock up for an, almost, certain pitching dual. After C.C and Cliff (that sounds like some awful 80’s synth pop duo) the rest of the rotations are uncertain at best. At the beginning of the year, and even at the All Star break, this series should have been about some of the best young pitchers in baseball. Instead Andy Petitte is throwing game 3 for New York and Pedro Martinez is going in game 2 for the Phillies. I’m not going to argue how great those two guys are and how good the Pedro storyline is, he could achieve promotion to the ultimate anti-Yankee with a couple of wins against them, but why have both these two, and others, been moved ahead of Joba Chamberlain for the Yanks and Cole Hamels and J.A Happ for the Phillies?

Despite my general dislike for both the Phillies and Yankees I always get excited by seeing young players come up and do well (the long, dark winter months will bring desires just to see one Tommy Hanson curveball I haven’t felt in a long time!) so I like seeing guys like Hamels, Joba and Happ. I don’t like seeing whats happened to them. Hamels would have been the opening day starter against (my) Braves way back in April but got hurt, and seems to have stayed hurt, and not wounded lion hurt much more of teething baby hurt. Coming of his post season mvp performance of last year he was expected to be THE guy in Philly and he just never pulled it out. This post season has been just a tiny bit different for Cole, he complained about playing a day game (those molars do hurt) got beat up in said day game, pitched badly against the Dodgers and has been changing fresh diapers every day (that ones definitely Hamels’ fault). The end of last season I really liked Cole Hamels, he seemed a pretty cool, likeable guy, a lot of the Phillies do, it seems fun, this year I really wouldn’t want to hang out with Cole anytime soon. You know when your at a party, everyone’s having a good time, you got the ridiculously smooth guys with their fancy threads (Howard and Rollins) the effortlessly cool guys (Utley and Pedro) and the stiffs that know their place (Lee) then you have that one person you hope won’t come because the musics too loud or the punch is too strong? That’s the 2009 Cole Hamels. Luckily for him he’s pitching against Pettite so he’s gonna look like Bill Clinton in comparison (the party Bill not the other Bill).

J.A Happ is a completely different Philly case, he never seemed any fun, he was the Philly party stiff before Lee arrived. It worked though, he was lights out all regular season, apart from the late arriving Lee and Pedro he was the ace, pitching in the 4th spot in the rotation, but the ace. He was the only Philly pitcher I thought could shut a team down this year prior to the big moves. And then came the play offs and his first bullpen outing for about 5 months and Seth Smiths line drive. I don’t know how much this affected Happ’s first ever post season start but, after his four pitches on October 8th he started October 11th and decided to try and rival Hamels’ year long average-ness. The 3 innings Happ threw was nothing more than glorified live batting practise, Manuel pulled him and since we’ve seen the potential rookie of the year become a one out bullpen guy. I don’t know what Happ(ened), it’s not as easy as Hamels just playing the little bitch, but something went wrong somewhere between the end of the regular season and the start of the post season. It’s come to a point where Happ’s use has become less and I’m ready to proclaim 2009 J.A Happ the Gunther from Friends of the baseball world. He started out in the background, came on strong and was given a larger role, floundered and was largely ignored for long periods and then, if you think about it could come back with one final flourish, the “I love you Philly” moment. There’s more hope for Happ than Hammels to do that, or maybe it’s just bad luck to have a last name beginning with H on the Phillies roster.

And now the most painful case of the three young, shouldda been W.S starters. The Curious Case of Joba Chamberlain. I thought it was great that even behind all the investment in Sabathia and Burnett the Yanks were still willing to put someone like Joba Chamberlain in their rotation. I like Joba and I think he’s got great stuff but I was watching the ALCS against the Angels, like a lot of people, and heard so much from so many experts about this 7th-8th-9th punch the Yankees had of Joba, Hughes and Rivera (Hughes is a different case all together) and thought that looked, and sounded, pretty freaking awesome, until I saw Joba. I occasionally catch those shows about neglected animals if the television has been abducted from my control by a person who will remain nameless and I swear Joba looks like on of those little lost, neglected, unhappy puppies that are picked up from dumpsters or home made kennels. The bullpen has become Joba’s dumpster. Everytime he waddles out to the mound there just isn’t any belief that he’s going to throw anything other than 94 down the middle and you can picture the sad look on his watching the ball fly back past him, like the boy in Free Willy when they try to kill Willy. If you follow baseball you know what happened to Chamberlain at the end of the year. The strange decision that rather than just shutting him down or sending him straight to the ’pen Joe Girardi would prefer to pitch him once ever 7 or 8 days, disrupt any kind of rhythm he had in favor of his favourite children. Joba became Cinderella to the step sisters of Burnett, Pettite and even Chad Gaudin, there hasn’t been a prince charming for Joba yet, just his ever decreasing velocity and relevance to this year. At least he’s got a new hat and t-shirt out of it already, maybe new ring will bring a smile to his face, maybe not. It is worth reminding Joe Girardi however that a Joba is for life, not just the summer.