Joba, Boone turning things around

If you were to tell me a month or two ago that Joba Chamberlain and Boom Boom Boone Logan would be lights out for the New York Yankees, I would have spit in your face and called you a liar. But that’s where we stand on August 14th, 2010.

Over his last 11 appearances (spanning 8 1/3 innings), the lefty specialist has given up just one hit and a walk while fanning nine batters for a WPA of .465. He has held batters to a .038/.107/.038 line and lowered his ERA from 4.05 to 2.86 in the process. To put that in perspective, his 11 appearances prior to that (spanning 15 2/3 innings) Boom Boom Boone yielded 18 hits, eight runs, eight walks and 11 strikeouts. He owned a 4.60 ERA while opponents were lighting him up for a .300/.382/.483 line. Every Yankee fan everywhere was calling for his head on a stick, and with good reason, as he boasted a -0.027 WPA.

Similarly, Joba has made incredible strides as well. Since having the eighth-inning role taken away, the guy whose heart everyone questioned has been great over his last eight appearances (7 2/3 innings). He has surrendered just two hits with three walks to six strikeouts and held batters to a .080/.179/.080 line for a WPA of .202. He also hit 99 MPH on the radar gun in Friday’s setback against the Royals (albeit on the YES gun, which has been known to inflate such numbers at times). It’s amazing that this is the same guy that people thought had an alcohol problem and couldn’t preform, given his previous 10 outings (11 innings pitched) showed 18 hits, 10 runs, six walks to 10 punch outs for a WPA of -.440. I guess he just needed a fire lit under his ass.

I guess it’s true what somebody once told me, you just can’t predict baseball.

Will these performances hold up? Obviously, I don’t know. They are clearly small sample sizes and do not reflect either pitchers’ career or where they will go from here. But, as Yankee fans, we can only hope that these are not aberrations.