YANKEES fans have held it over Mets fans forever, and this week is yet another example why the Yankees Universe is so much more of a respectable place than the Bizarro World of the Mets.
In a week the Yankees lost their ace, everything is coming up aces.
Joba Chamberlain put up his best outing in a 2-1 win yesterday over the Padres at Yankee Stadium, a performance the Yankees desperately needed because Chien-Ming Wang is sidelined for months. The Yankees have won seven straight and their starters own a 1.69 ERA over that span.
Chamberlain allowed one run over 52/3 innings on four hits and struck out nine. He is starting to look like a No. 1 starter, even though this was his fourth major league start. His spring training continues. No Yankees starter has struck out more this season.
Alex Rodriguez, who knocked in the go-ahead run with a scorching single in the sixth, put it best: “Without guys like Joba, you can’t win championships. We need him in the starting rotation.”
The Mets appear to be in a constant state of embarrassment,but the Yankees are coming together.
“Now the whole team is playing the way we normally play,” said Mariano Rivera, who struck out the side to earn his 20th save and sports an ERA of 0.79.
Most importantly, Cham berlain reached the Holy Grail of 100 pitches, a ca reer high. He was taken out with the game tied, 1-1, which cost him any chance of winning.
But right now starting isn’t about individual wins.
Chamberlain said the mini-milestone got him thinking about dinner: “I’m hungry, give me something to eat. That’s a lot of pitches – 100.”
After Chamberlain left to a standing ovation, the bullpen was spectacular. Imagine that, without Chamberlain, the bullpen got the job done.
Hank Steinbrenner was right . . . about Joba and about the National League. He is an ace in the making. The DH-less NL is behind the times in every way. The Padres swept the Mets. Less than two weeks later the Yankees swept the Padres.
The NL will never catch up with the American League simply because every AL team pays dearly to have a designated hitter. The NL doesn’t hand out that kind of money for a bench player.
As for the Mets, they simply can’t help themselves. They frequent-flier fire Willie Randolph in a classless manner after Randolph represented nothing but class in pinstripes and beyond.
“That’s weak,” Rivera, the classiest Yankee, said of Randolph’s dismissal. “Willie never should have been treated that way. He was giving everything he had for that team.”
Rivera planned to call Randolph last night. Whether Randolph’s firing jumpstarts the Mets or not remains to be seen, but there is no doubt the way the move was made leaves a scar.
The Yankees, after so many injury problems, are healing as a team, just in time for summer, but the loss of Wang is difficult to overcome. That’s why Chamberlain’s performance was so important. You can see it in the eyes of his teammates. They believe he will be something special as a starter, just as he was as a setup man. They are counting on him.
And for a change the Yankees are not the controversial team in New York. They are going about their business. Brian Cashman is running a baseball-first organization. Johnny Damon, who is once again igniting the Yankees, said he cannot speak about Life as a Met, but he does know this much.
“I like the way the Yankees run their organization, run their team,” he said. “The way they take care of things on the field and off the field, I definitely respect that.”
From Chamberlain on down, the Yankees are earning respect by their performance.