What's The Deal With Joba? | IFIWEREABETTINMAN

Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees is favored to beat Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays in New York tonight. At first glance, this makes little sense and the betting public seems to agree with me. The money line started out at -123 on the favorite Yankees, but has dropped to -117. People are seeing the pitching match up and jumping on Halladay.

If I were a bettin' man I would go the other way and take Joba.

Halladay has a good record against the Yankees, and he has pitched extremely well in his past two starts . Plus, he is Roy Halladay. He is a proven, accomplished, steady performing veteran who appears to be on top of his game. So, the obvious bet when seeing he is an underdog to a rookie who has never started a game on the big league level is to take Halladay.

The question we would have to ask is why Joba was set as the favorite to begin with? Is it simply because the Yankees are at home? Is it because the Yankees offense is better than Toronto's? Or is it because Joba is the real deal and should handle this start against Halladay just fine?

The Yankees are behind Toronto in the standings and are barely over .500 at home, so I don't think location has played much of a part. The Yankees offense is hardly making headlines lately, though it still is better than Toronto's.

The Yankees offense most likely will be nullified to some extent by Halladay, however, which means if you favored the Yankees to win you must have faith in Joba, a rookie pitcher in his first start. We know he throws 100 mph fast balls, but we don't know how many innings he will pitch or how long he can keep fooling the opposition. It doesn't make sense that he is favored to win.

I have only seen Joba pitch once and that was for one inning, but based on the odds in this game, the gambling officials who have seen Joba pitch most or all of his games have good reason to set him as the favorite, so I would follow their lead.

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