INCOMING!: Joba Chamberlain tries to avoid a piece of a broken bat during last night’s 2-1, 13-inning loss to the Orioles in Game 4 of the ALDS. He was unable to get out of the way and the bat struck his surgically reconstructed right elbow, forcing him to leave the game after being examined by the team’s medical staff. (Anthony J. Causi; N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg (inset))
In a grim Yankees clubhouse late last night, their season on the brink once more, Joba Chamberlain assumed the role of team comedian, cracking one self-deprecating joke after another as he and his teammates digested a brutal, 13-inning, 2-1 loss to the resilient Orioles at Yankee Stadium.
It should’ve been wholly inappropriate behavior by Chamberlain, who occasionally can be tone deaf with his words and actions. On this night, however? It made some sense, while at the same time casting doubt upon the Yankees’ postseason survival.
To a list of adversities that already included the Lake Erie midges, Tommy John surgery and a trampoline mishap, add a broken bat shard that knocked out the revitalized Chamberlain from this taut contest. When Chamberlain broke Matt Wieters’ bat on a 12th-inning single, a large bat chunk nailed the reliever on the outside of his surgically reconstructed right elbow. His availability for today’s Game 5 is in doubt as the Yankees and Baltimore, tied at two games apiece, engage in a winner-take-all contest.
“I don’t know if I’d hang out with me very much. I might need a bubble,” Chamberlain said, smiling. “But it happens. Obviously it’s one of those things, part of the game. You take care of it and get after it tomorrow.”
Chamberlain, who made himself relevant with a strong final month of the regular season — he struggled initially upon returning from the Tommy John surgery in August — threw an excellent, 1-2-3 11th inning, and Wieters’ broken bat to start the 12th indicated that the right-hander had once again done his job. This ball flew softly to left field and landed in front of Ichiro Suzuki, however, and as Chamberlain watched the ball’s flight, the bat nailed him, causing him to fall down in pain and prompting head athletic trainer Steve Donohue to run onto the field.
“You make a good pitch, they throw a flare out there and the bat comes to get you,” Chamberlain said. “I guess it’s ‘Bat one, Me nothing.’ So hopefully we can break some more and they don’t hit me.”
He climbed back atop the mound and threw three practice pitches, making his case to stay in the game. But the elbow had swelled some, so Girardi lifted Chamberlain for rookie David Phelps, who proceeded to lose the game in the 13th by allowing doubles to Manny Machado and J.J. Hardy on sliders that stayed up in the zone. Phelps refused to use his cold entrance as an excuse, saying, “You get plenty of time to warm up. It wasn’t too tough.’’
Asked if Chamberlain would be deactivated for tonight — a move that would take him out of the Championship Series, as per postseason roster rules — Girardi said, “It probably depends on how he feels [today]. We’ll have to see.”
His time as a stud prospect seems like ancient history. What we now remember most from his explosive 2007 season was how his ALDS Game 2 outing in Cleveland blew up because of a midge attack. From there, he rode a roller coaster from reliever to starter back to reliever, ascending early last year before going down with the elbow problem.
Then came his March 2012 incident with a trampoline, when he made the ill-advised decision to play with his young son at one of those cheesy gyms in Tampa and wound up dislocating his right ankle, further setting him back.
For whatever you want to say about his judgment, Chamberlain’s diligence at rehabilitation cannot be questioned, and the results showed with his recent pitching. Until the broken bat nailed him, creating another cloud over his head.
We’ll see if he and the Yankees can recover quickly from this one, put it behind them in a day’s time. For sure, though, if the Yankees lose this next game, absolutely no one in their clubhouse will be cracking one-liners.