After Tuesday night just about the only good thing you can say about Joba Chamberlain and Marcus Thames is that each guy accepted responsibility for screwing up what should have been an easy Yankee victory.
Here is Joba after being booed.
"They have a right to (boo)," Chamberlain said. "They spend their hard-earned money and I didn't do my job. I made terrible pitches. That one is on me, nobody else. We don't have to fight back if I do my job."
Here is Thames on his crucial drop.
"I was coming in and I just took my eye off the ball," Thames said. "I looked at Robbie, but I called him off, and that has to be caught. I'm a major-league player and I have to catch that ball. It cost the team the win and it sucks. There's no excuses at all."
The guy who really worries me is Chamberlain. His ERA is 4.91 now, and all those hopes that being back in the bullpen would help Joba find the dominant form of yesteryear seem to be fading. He will get the job done more often than not, and once in a while the electric stuff and fist-pumping personality will show up, but there seem to be many nights now when Chamberlain is just another guy coming out of the pen.