	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

MLB WORLD SERIES: PHILLIES v YANKEES

November 2, 2009

Joba Chamberlain

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Game Five

Q. There's been a lot of talk from the Yankees about winning one for Mr. Steinbrenner. I'm just curious if you remember the first time you had met him and how many times you've been around him during your career with the Yankees?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: I've met him a couple times. The first I actually got to sit and have a conversation with him was at the All-Star Game last year. You kind of get a kid in the candy store, there's so many questions you want to ask him. He's been a leader in a lot of things, not only in building a baseball team but things he's done in the community and things like that. For a young kid coming up and trying to learn things, how to be done the right way, that was definitely something, to be able to ask him a few questions was pretty special for me.

Q. You had a pretty solid first few months as a starter and then didn't do as well the second half of the season. What do you think happened? Was there worry as far as the amount of innings involved? And how much did it help that they cut down on your load afterward?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: It's just my first year being a starter from Spring Training on. It's the first time I've actually got to experience everything as a whole. It was a great learning process. I had a lot of great guys around me to help me through the process. It's something that you've got to learn from. Things go right, things go bad, but it's how you handle that and how you come back from it. So I've learned a lot from it, and I think it's just helped me for the future and down the road and what it holds for me.

Q. Following up on that a little bit, talk about your own maturation over the last year and how you've been able to handle adversity as a pitcher.
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: It's been great. As far as just being able to look at things and try to grow from every outing no matter if they're good or bad. There's always something positive you can take from it. Being able to learn hitters and noticing swings and things like that. As a guy coming up I got thrown at it quickly, so I went out and attacked the zone, and I did that too but I wasn't necessarily pitching as much as I have been as far as just reading swings, setting up guys and not getting into patterns. I think that was the biggest thing, is just learning to pitch and just reading guys' swings.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the emotional pick-me-up you got yesterday from Derek in the dugout after giving up the tying there and then actually getting the pick-me-up when you guys got the tying run to the plate the next inning?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: It was great. I come out, and to get that out afterwards, I know we could have let things unravel. I give up the home run to tie the game, but I also knew Ruiz was coming up and he's had a great post-season with big at-bats, and he's been a great hitter in the post-season for them. So I knew I had to get us in the dugout as soon I can. And when I got in there I told the guys to pick me up. That's just the character of this team, knowing we trust each other so much and we always pick each other up. To be able to watch that was pretty special.

Q. You mentioned the future. As you know, your role has been debated endlessly around the planet. I'm just wondering, do you still see your future as a starting pitcher?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah, I mean, that's what we've done. It'll be another off-season full of questions. It's something we're prepared for. Right now we're just focused on trying to win. It's something that we're probably going to talk about in the off-season and go from there. But like I said, it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. It's the only thing I have done. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it in the off-season.

Q. So this season and the different role in the post-season, that hasn't changed your mind at all?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: I just want to pitch to be honest with you. I know I've told you that the last two years but that's the way it continues to be, just to be a part of this team and to be looked at in both aspects is an honor. You've just got to take what you've got and try to learn and make the best of it.

Q. People were really impressed with your stuff last night. Posada called it electric. And I'm wondering whether that's something you feel like you can bring through the course of a whole game as a starter as opposed to short spurts as a reliever?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: It's two totally different things. You can't go out there and do the things you can as a reliever because you've got to worry about guys the third and fourth time going through the lineup, and how you got them out the first time is probably not going to work the second time. Guys are too good to be able to do that.
It's the same as going to attack guys but it's just a different mentality knowing what you have to do to set up a guy in a certain way. They're one and the same but they're also two totally different.

Q. Is there any way of quantifying what Mariano has meant to you guys this post-season, the fact that other closers have wilted and he to this point has been just about untouchable?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: I don't think there's words that can describe how good he's been, not only for this year but for the 40 years he's been playing it feels like. Every time I turn on the TV in the post-season it feels like I watch Mo get an out. Just to sit in the bullpen and watch him and talk to him and realize why he's so good. He pays attention to every small detail, to a way a guy stands in the box to the way he does things early in the game. I think that's the biggest thing I've learned being in the bullpen. From the first couple innings you're just out there to relax but from then on you've got to pay attention because that's going to help you in the long run. It's fun to be down there, and sometimes it gets intimidating to talk to him but he makes it so easy for us to approach him and ask him any question that is on our mind or how to get a guy out. Any part of the game, not necessarily just getting a guy out but how to approach it and what we should do.

Q. You brought up getting out Ruiz after the Feliz home run. A year ago are you as focused, are you as concentrated on Ruiz, or is that last fastball ringing in your mind?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: I think that's part of growing up is letting that last one go. It's hard to look back a year ago and see what would happen, but I think my focus would have been a little bit different. I remember I gave up a home run in the regular season in the bullpen, and I kind of let it bother me. You know, I remembered what Mo told me last year that carried over, "Just forget about it. I mean, you've got to make your next pitch and get out of the inning and get the guys off the field."
So I think that part of the maturation process is something that helped me get out of that inning.

Q. So much has been made about how they used you in trying to keep you fresh and you have thrown more innings than you have in your career, and this is your first full season, no injuries or anything like that. How do you actually feel? How does your arm feel, and do you think all of what they did has proven to work out?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah, I mean, as a competitor it gets frustrating because you want to be out there every fifth day and do those things. But I also understand I want to play this game for a long time. I feel great. We've done everything the right way in the weight room and my shoulders and doing all of that.
As far as the whole year and being where I want to be, I couldn't ask for anything more. I learned a lot, which is going to help me from here on out. I thank them enough -- it gets frustrating as a competitor, but I thank them every day for just being patient and sticking with me and still continuing to have the confidence in me to run me out there no matter what.

Q. When you realize that you got the win in the game, when did that realization hit you and how did it feel?
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN: It actually didn't hit me until my sister showed me the picture. I didn't even think about it. She took a picture, and she goes, "You won in the College World Series and now you won in the World Series."
It's kind of unreal. It's something you dream about as a kid to come in the World Series and help the team in any aspect, but then when you get a win, it's something that's pretty special to me and something I'll never forget.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297