Pitching doesn’t hold up as Yanks lose opener to Angels

For four innings, Joba Chamberlain didn’t look too bad. He’d allowed five hits and a walk in that span, but worked out of trouble well enough, surrendering just one run. But it all came undone in the fifth. After two singles and an A-Rod error, Joba hung a breaking ball to Kendry Morales and the Angels tied the game. Joba didn’t settle down afterward, and he left after just 4.1. The Yankees wouldn’t recover, and the Angels took the opener 10-6.

The Yanks looked good early, striking three times in the first five innings to take a 5-1 lead. The pitching imploded from there, though, as Joba, Melancon, and Bruney combined to blow the game. There’s really not much else to say about it. They all pitched to varying degrees of crap, and the Yanks offense couldn’t muster enough support. Not that we should expect them to. Six runs is plenty.

Joba had some zip on his fastball, averaging 93.5 and topping out at 97. As you can see in his histogram, he was sitting around 94 frequently. So, like most pitchers in the league, he needs more than his velocity to pitch well and deep into games. That could mean some more variety in his pitch selection. Of his 94 pitches, 87 percent were fastballs or sliders. He’s going to have to drop that curve — which he threw only five times last night — a bit more. He’ll have a long time to go over what’s wrong; he won’t start again for another nine days, and the Yankees could push that to 10 if they wanted.

Again, not much to this one. Another poor start for Joba, some sloppy work out of the bullpen, and surprise surprise, it ended in a loss. All they can do is come back tomorrow. Andy Pettitte tries to redeem himself against Jered Weaver at 4:10.