I’ve said this earlier, and I think it bears repeating-especially in light of Joba’s (not to channel ARoth) C start. It doesn’t matter if you are Sandy Koufax, if you don’t execute you won’t be successful. In Joba’s defense, he had several things working against him.

-First start in Yankees Stadium
-Homeplate umpire was brutally inconsistent
—Jays are a patient group of professional hitters

Back in the day, I had two catchers who were more like pitching coaches/pyschologists to me and several other young starters. I think young pitchers absolutely need someone like that to navigate them through the order and attempt to keep the game slow.

That’s really what I think was going on with Joba last night. He didn’t pitch poorly, but it appeared to me that his emotions had him by the throat and the game was moving alittle to rapidly for him. When that happens, the tendency is to overthink, and become too fine. That’s when mistakes happen. That’s when mechanics get rushed and pitches don’t get finished.

Molina did a great job with Joba, but a catcher can do only so much. Ultimately a pitcher needs to execute. I suspect we will see a big improvement in his next start.

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel that Joba needs to really work on some mechanics and switch things up a bit to make it as a starter? I don’t regret Girardi’s decision to start Joba last night, but I think the typical hype of any New York hopeful put more pressure on him than anticipated. All in all, after watching a replay of the game, I think he looked ‘ok.’ OK in a sense that he really did nothing wrong. OK in a sense that there is obviously room to improve, but it can only do just that from hereon-in; improve. There’s a lot of hope in a guy like Joba, and evidence of a future starter for the club. But I think two things played a factor in this:

1. The Yanks and their fans are just looking for something, anything to cling to as a sign of hope.

And this one kinda sorta intertwines with the first:

2. The expectations of Joba for his first career start were exaggerated even more because the club is losing. If the Bombers were in first place and he gave the same effort, they’d look at it more as potential ammunition instead of the arsenal they were hoping for.

For the sake of not sounding like a dad on this one, I’m kind of proud of him. I think a majority of fans feels that same, semi-awkward kind of feeling too.