Game 60 – Over-hyped

All this hoopla over a pitcher who throws just 2.1 IP. When is the last time you saw a standing ovation for a starting pitcher who just threw 2.1 IP gave up 1 hit, 4 BB’s, 2 runs (1 earned) and even made a balk. Well that is NY for you and their over-hyped young players. Now I clearly think Chamberlain is the best of the 3, and the only 1 w/the chance to be an ace (Hughes maybe is a 2, and Kennedy is no better than a 4 or 5), but it is unbelievable how much attention is being paid to this one start from Chamberlain even though he will be on a pitch count and its basically an extended relief appearance. From everything I’ve heard and saw Chamberlain has the quality and quantity of pitches needed to be a starter so why not get 180-200 innings out of him rather than 80. Of course he will have to learn to be more efficient than he was in this game if he expects to succeed as a starter.

The big blow in this game came in the 7th as the Jays sent 11 men to the plate against 3 Yankee relievers and scored 6 times to blow the game open. The Jays were a slightly before avg .250 (3 for 12) w/RISP but did manage 5 BB’s and 2 SF’s as well.

All that was more than enough for Halladay and the pen. It was a typical day facing the Yankees as even Halladay had to use 102 pitches just to get through 6 against them. And even in a Halladay start the game still lasted 3 hrs 38 mins.

I was very surprised to see the infield in in the 1st inning w/Abreu up and damon at 3rd w/1 out. The Jays were up a run, you knew you would be getting to the Yankee relievers early and you have Halladay pitching. Why not concede the run on a ground ball rather than possibly play the inning into a crooked number. I’d take my chances in a tie game w/Halladay vs a bunch of Yankee relievers.

One thing I kind of hate to see is an umpire changing his strike zone late in the game regardless of score. Normally I grant some leeway in the early innings to allow the HP ump to establish his strike zone. Yes there is a defined strike zone, but I’ve accepted the fact that every umpire has their own. I just hope they stick to the same one the entire game. For the most part I think umps do stick to whatever strike zone they initially set but sometimes, particularly in blowout games that are running long, the umps seem to widen their strike zone just a bit. As a result you see a number of players upset w/calls late in the game. I definitely think Hickox was guilty of that tonight as he saw the game running past the 3 hr mark and the Jays up by 6 he increased the size of his strikezone. In the last 2 innings the teams combined to strike out looking 5 times, compared to 0 in the first 7 innings.

Leading the way for the Jays was Wilkerson w/3 hits, while Overbay and Stairs each walked 3 times, representing 6 of the 10 BB’s the Jays had in the game. Eckstein also nicely chipped in leading the team w/3 RBI’s.

Onto the stats:
Adv: Jeter
P-Adv: Tallet (2)
Adv+: Wilkerson (1)
P-Adv+: Giese
WG: Abreu
DE: Scutaro (3)
ME(r): Jeter