4 Reasons Not To Panic

As the post suggests, these are the reasons why people shouldn't freak out over Joba Chamberlain's outing last night. They're pretty simple and obvious when you think.

1) It's the first start of his major league career and gives little to no indication of what kind of pitcher he's going to be.

2) The Blue Jays knew he was on a 60-70 pitch count. It was the first game of a series, and you can bet your grandma's kneecaps that their manager told them to make him throw and try to get him out of there quickly so the bullpen would have to work a lot of innings. Dan Giese did a nice job of not letting them completely burn out our bullpen last night. If anything, it was a bad idea to publicly announce what his pitch count was going to be, but no biggy.

3) Joba only gave up 1 hit. The four walks are the byproduct of #2, these guys were UP THERE TO TAKE PITCHES. They weren't going to swing at anything borderline. Did you see anybody swing at his first pitch? Ever? They were probably up there taking a strike. This is because of the pitch count.

4) Shannon Stewart scored on a walk, a balk, a passed ball and a groundout. And Alex Rios didn't even score on Joba!! Joba walked Rios, they brought in Dan Giese... and GIESE was the one who allowed Rios to steal second, get to third on Molina's throwing error... and score on ANOTHER GROUNDOUT! This game didn't go into the can until Veras and Edwar shit all over it. It was a 3-2 game in the 6th inning. It's not as though we got blown out.

So to summarize, as Joba works into form and his pitch count is loosened, his outings will be longer and better. Guys will go back to swinging out of their shoes to try to hit his nasty fastball/slider combination. The curve and change will work into form. And this kid's going to be a successful starting pitcher. I know this isn't the kind of content we usually post here (specifically because it's not attacking Mike Lupica in any way, even though he is a fucking gimp), but I felt like it was necessary to calm you guys down. Because I hate to see you upset.

And in case you can't tell, I really like the "Kickassingest" tag! I think we should use it whenever Joba is involved. Forever.

And another thing... are Met fans really shitting their pants and then dancing in those same shitted pants because Pedro went 6 innings on 3 runs, 7 hits and 3 walks? Against the weakest offense in the last 20 years of baseball history? And beat Barry Zito? Grats on that. We'll keep Joba.