From the NYTimes:
Chamberlain could summon such heat when he needed it, but his greater reliance on a sinker helped induce contact and conserve pitches.
Chamberlain, who left for a pinch-hitter in the seventh, said he worked on the sinker with Chien-Ming Wang last spring, when both were coming back from injuries.
Chamberlain guessed that he threw 10 sinkers on Friday.
“It’s actually something I felt really comfortable with, obviously, from how many times I threw it tonight,” he said. “It gives me a different speed variation.”
I remember him toying with it in Spring Training, but this articles says that he'd been playing with it longer than that. I didn't honestly think he'd break it out this season. For those of you keeping score at home, that's 5 pitches. 5 quality pitches.
It seems that Joba was giving Pf/x a lot of trouble.
- He threw a pitch 90-93 with 6" of break, and Pf/x alternates between calling it a fastball and a change up. I'm betting that's the sinker.
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He regularly throws his curve in the mid-70s with 14" of break, but Pf/x mislabeled a few changeups (mid-80s, 10" break) as curves (2 in the third, 1 in the 5th). Could these have been ridiculously slow and mobile sinkers? It brings the count closer to the ten he mentions in the Times.
- His straight fastball came in 94-98 with 4" break.
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His longest AB of the night was a 9 pitcher affair with Kaz Matsui in which Joba threw 6 breaking balls.
- Joba recorded an out on 3 pitches or less for 11 of his 18 outs. That is efficiency.