The New York Yankees beat the Tampa Bay Rays by a score of 4-3. Starting for the Yankees was Joba Chamberlain and he got a no decision. Alfredo Aceves got the win. Mariano Rivera got the save. What else can you say about this Yankees team? They come back every game and put pressure on you in every fashion. When the Yankees were down in the last innings, I knew they would have a great chance to come back and win. I didn’t feel that way last year. However, the Rays do have a bad bullpen. It’s going to be interesting to see how the Yankees do against the Red Sox and their dynamite bull pen. Joba had a quality start. He pitched very well up until the sixth inning. Before the sixth, he had a very good curveball, a great slider and great location on his fastball. You could tell he had a great slider because he was striking out batters while his slider was in the strike zone. He was throwing his slider on every count to the Tampa batters. To the lefty batters, it was late, quick and breaking down and in. The batters were swinging and missing at his breaking balls while they were in the strike zone. He had a pretty good strike to ball ratio and was mixing in all of his pitches which were sliders, curveballs, changeups and fastballs. He has an innate knack to get out of trouble and make quality pitches. The game could of been 5-1 in the sixth inning since there were two more men on base but Joba held the Rays to only two runs. In the sixth inning, he had his greatest velocity on his fastball at 96 mph but started to lose command. He was rushing his delivery and he was missing badly up in the zone. His pitch count was great up to that point but threw 31 pitches and was out of the game after that. I know this is the biggest issue Yankee fans have with one another with Joba being a starter or a reliever but you have to take every game you watch into consideration. Joba seemed to lose gas in this game. He throws a lot of pitches in trying to get batters out because he’s a strike out power pitcher. I still think he needs to develop a sinker so he could get more one pitch ground outs and more double play balls. He might always be throwing a lot of pitches in every game for the rest of his career. We still have to see how he develops because he’s only 23. Some pitchers don’t start becoming great until they are 25-26. I’m one of the Yankee fans that thinks he should be in the bull pen. Alfredo Aceves was awesome. He was throwing a back door cutter and a slider and was very effective. You can’t give a team like the Yankees a break like they got in the eighth inning when third baseman Willie Ayabar made an error that could of ended the inning with a double play. This is a different Yankee team that we’ve seen in the past and they will take advantage of you if you start to goof around. They are believers and always believe they are in the game. You can say the game came down to Hideki Matsui hustling down to first base on the fielder’s choice that gave the Yankees the lead. Nice effort by the “Thrilla.” Even though the Yankees made another error, Mark Texeira was pretty great in the field. He has a great wing span and range. He goes after balls that are hit to him. He’s aggressive. The Yankees win but they can’t look ahead to Boston. They must finish business tomorrow. Player of the Game: Alfredo Aceves. He held the Rays down and had unpredicatble stuff.
