Joba Found Wanting

If the Yanks get the ball to Joba with a one-run lead in the eighth inning you can pretty much bank on a win about 95% of the time. The kid is that good. Unfortunately, tonight's game fell in that other 5%.

Chamberlain walked the leadoff man, which is always playing with fire, then pitched around Peralta, the Tribe's biggest threat. That brought David Dellucci off the bench to pinch hit with 2 on and 2 out. The inning was salvageable at that point, obviously. All he had to do was sit down Dellucci, Mo comes in for the save and it's another win. Another successful use of the formula. It wasn't meant to be. This loss would hurt a lot more if Joba had made a mistake to Dellucci, but he didn't. David Dellucci got on top of a 97 MPH, letter-high fastball on the inside half of the plate and deposited it in the 2nd row for a three-run game-winner. There's nothing you can do about that but tip your cap.

The Yankee offense frustrated Fausto Carmona, who is not the pitcher he was last year, and put 11 men on base in his five innings of work, but could only push three runs across. Jason Giambi knocked in two of the runs and actually managed to find a hole for an RBI double. Robinson Cano knocked in the other on a bouncer through the drawn-in infield.

All told, the bats didn't really get the job done, and the alarming 4-run trend continues. The Yanks are now 14-0 when they hold the opposing team to less than 4 runs, 3-17 when they allow 4 or more. That's not supposed to happen when you have a lineup like this. I don't know if we should be reassured by this stat because the Yanks will surely score runs at some point, or if we should be worried because holding the opposition to less than 4 runs seems like a stretch 60% of the time. Sobering thoughts on a cloudy Tuesday night.

If you need something to brighten your day, check out Ian Kennedy's line for SWB tonight. (Thanks to commenter Alex K. for giving me updates on his no-no during the Yanks game)

Wrap-up info after the jump (so you don't have to load 5 of those huge Damon pictures every time you visit the home page)