This call to the bullpen
- As a reliever.
The difference from the starter who too often was tentative and too frequently throwing fastballs at 89-91 mph was stark. As one Yankees official noted recently, "It was hard to miss."
- The transformation was so blatant, in fact, that the No. 5 starter competition between Chamberlain and Phil Hughes is almost over two weeks before pitchers and catchers even report.
- For that to change, one of two issues probably must occur in spring:
1) Hughes flops (a possibility if he does not better hone a changeup), or,
2) A main veteran starter goes down (a possibility, especially considering the heavy workloads endured last season by CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte)....
- But by morphing back into a confident, dart-throwing reliever in the postseason, Chamberlain has pushed the Yanks to more seriously consider that he
- might not have been suffering rotation growing pains and, instead,
- simply is more temperamentally built to work out of the pen.
And, really, the bigger question the Yanks might want to ask in spring is not Joba vs. Hughes as much as 2010 vs. the future."...
- "Joba's Bullpen Call," by Joel Sherman, NY Post, 2/3/10
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