Jays Steal Joba's Thunder

Joba Chamberlain's first start in the major leagues didn't go quite as planned and the Yankees bullpen clearly had no plan last night as the Toronto Blue Jays thumped the Yankees 9-3. Chamberlain's much ballyhooed outing lasted only 2.1 innings after he threw his 62nd pitch. A 35 pitch 1st inning put a crimp in Joe Girardi's plans.

Chamberlain walked the lead off hitter, Shannon Stewart and balked him to 2nd. Stewart moved to 3rd on Jose Molina's passed ball, and scored on Alex Rios' ground out. With 2 outs things looked pretty good, but Scott Rolen singled to right and Chamberlain issued back to back walks to Matt Stairs and Lyle Overbay before finally blowing a 3rd strike past Rod Barajas to end the inning. Chamberlain screamed in his glove, ala Andy Pettitte, as he departed the mound.

The Yankees got their highly touted rookie right off the hook in their half of the 1st. Johnny Damon lead off with a triple, but it appeared he would be stranded after Derek Jeter grounded to 3rd and Bobby Abreu struck out. But Jays starter Roy Halladay hit Alex Rodriguez in the elbow with a break pitch, and Hideki Matsui and Jason Giambi followed with RBI singles.

Chamberlain retired the Jays in order in the 2nd, but when he walked Rios with one out in the 3rd, his day was done. The crowd wasn't there to see 31-yr old Dan Geise, but the long time minor league came on for his 9th major league appearance. The Blue Jays quickly tied the game when Rios stole 2nd and moved to 3rd on Molina's throwing error, and scored on Rolen's ground out to Robinson Cano.

Geise (pronounced gīs) ran into trouble again in the 4th allowing back to back hits to Barajas and Brad Wilkerson, and a go ahead sacrifice fly to David Eckstein. But the right-hander settled down after that and kept the Yankees in the game. That is until the rest of the bullpen took over.

Edwar Ramirez, who was unscored upon for his first 13 appearances before giving up a run his last time out, couldn't retire a batter, and couldn't throw strikes. He issued 3 walks and allowed a hit, while being charged with 4 runs. He also allowed the 2 runners he inherited to score. LaTroy Hawkins allowed 3 inherited runners to score as well in another ineffective outing.

News and Notes

On a night when he wasn't that effective, Roy Halladay only needed to go 6 innings to get the win. The Yankees scratched a final run against reliever Brian Tallet.

Johnny Damon was 3-4 to push his average up to .301 and extended his hitting streak to 12 games. He's 18-40 (.425) during the streak.

Derek Jeter's 2 hits gave him 2,415, tying him with Mickey Mantle for 3rd place on the all-time franchise list. Babe Ruth is 2nd with 2,518.

Dan Graziano did a nice feature in today's Star Ledger on Dan Geise. The best part are the 2 references to "The Office".

Ed Price of the Ledger reports that Jorge Posada will rejoin the team today, but there's still debate over whether he'll be activated today or tomorrow. Either way it probably means a return trip to the minors for Chris Britton.

Ian Kennedy played catch for the first time since going on the DL.

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