Joba Chamberlain was a sight for sore
eyes.
Watching Joba standing on the Yankee
Stadium mound yesterday warmed my heart. He didn’t pitch particularly well, which
was to be expected given his long pitching layoff and the jumble of emotions he
must have been feeling. Not that it really mattered how he pitched. Just seeing
him on the mound was a testament to his perseverance.
His manager Joe Girardi talked about how
he never had any doubt that Joba, a famously quick healer who didn’t even feel
his elbow coming apart before his Tommy John surgery, would pitch again this
year, even after the grotesque ankle injury. I genuinely believed Girardi when
he said that, not always the case to be honest. I had been following Joba’s
recovery as closely as possible and his determination to return to the pitching
mound and prove all the doubters who said his career was over wrong was
evident. Not only did he heal more quickly than expected, he was lighting up
the radar gun during his rehab assignments and I have no doubt that he will be
lighting up the Yankee Stadium gun once he gets comfortable again.
Despite his rough first outing, the New
York Yankees are confident that he can solidify the bullpen, much as he had
done last year before his unexpected and unfortunate elbow injury. They are so
confident in Joba that Brian Cashman felt comfortable trading away Chad Qualls for
some bench help before Tuesday’s deadline. The Yankees, overly cautious in
their handling of Joba at times, were so sure that he was healthy that they
called him back up to the big club rather than sending him to Trenton for a
scheduled rehab assignment, no doubt disappointing a lot of New Jersey-based
Yankee fans hoping for a glimpse of Joba.
But it was a thrill watching him pitch
in a big-league game again, something a lot of people suspected he would never do,
even if Joba himself never doubted it for a second.
No comments:
Post a Comment