Examining 6 Pound 8 Ounce Dear Lord Baby Joba's start

Joba had a pretty great game yesterday. He got through 7 innings on 88 pitches. This is a great sign, because it shows that he is being efficient with his pitches, and learning to pace himself so he can go deeper into games. At that pace it wouldn't have been tough for him to pitch a complete game with 110-115 pitches. The more exciting news though is that he only allowed 1 earned run yesterday. So not only was he efficient he was effective. He allowed 3 hits and and 3 walks, while striking out 6. I'd like to see that walk number go down, but 6 K's in 7 innings is pretty great, and his WHIP was under 1 for the game. I really think this is the kind of performance we should expect to see from Our Lord the Savior pretty much from here on out. He'll have some tough starts, but this was a good look at who he really is. Joba probably could have gone deeper in the game, but since he is on an innings/pitch count for the season, why waste him when we had an 8 run lead. But with the way out bullpen's been looking...who knows... Seems like Mark Melancon is going to be one of our most reliable arms out of the 'pen, but losing Bruney is really going to hurt us. BUT JOBA ISNT GOING BACK TO THE PEN! We need those 7 strong innings so much more that 1 strong inning as the game ends.