(Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

With springtime waning, baseball is quickly rounding the corner into the long summer months, and New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi is now faced with a difficult decision.

Chien Ming Wang, who struggled mightily in the Yankees' rotation early this season, has returned to the team and looked strong in the Yankees' bullpen.

The two-time 19 game winner had surrendered more than 20 earned runs in just three painfully short starts, but his stint on the disabled list seems to have remedied his problem.

But Wang’s well deserved spot in the Yankees' rotation has been jeopardized by a pleasant, but perhaps problematic, surprise: The exceptional play of 23-year-old right hander Phil Hughes.

Hughes has pitched 34.2 innings over seven starts, posting a 3-2 record and a 5.22 ERA. His high ERA can be credited to two poor starts, but Hughes has looked extremely promising at times, and many believe that it would be inappropriate to send Hughes back to the minor leagues at this point in his career.

Hughes dominated in the minor leagues last year, posting a stellar 2.19 ERA, and many believe that another stretch in the minors would do little to develop him as a pitcher.

A desire to bring Wang back into the rotation left fans screaming for Girardi to put Joba Chamberlain back in the bullpen.

In 2007, Chamberlain pitched 24 innings for the Yankees, posting a minuscule 0.38 ERA and serving as a dominant set-up man for Mariano Rivera.

But despite his dominance out of the pen, Chamberlain has made it clear to the Yankees organization that he wants to be a starting pitcher. This year, in 10 starts, Chamberlain has posted a respectable 3.71 ERA, but his longevity has been called into question, as he has only stretched those 10 appearances into 53.1 innings.

Perhaps one reason that Yankees fans feel so strongly about the necessity of having Chamberlain in the bullpen is the prominent role that relief pitching played in the dynastic years between 1996-2000.

In 1998, the Yankees won 114 games, and their bullpen posted an impressive 3.218 ERA. In the playoffs, that bullpen was virtually unstoppable, surrendering only six runs in 30.2 innings. Ramiro Mendoza, Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson, and Graeme Lloyd made the best bullpen in the major leagues.

In addition, Mariano Rivera made the ninth inning practically automatic for the Yankees. With a 1.060 ERA on the season, Rivera pitched 13.1 innings in the postseason, allowing only one run.

Yankees fans understand the importance of a strong bullpen, and with five competent starting pitchers rounding out the 2009 rotation and no heir apparent to Mariano Rivera looming in the bullpen, fans in the Bronx were becoming restless with Girardi’s indecisiveness about putting the 24-year-old right hander back in the bullpen.

On Sunday, Chien Ming Wang gave the Yankees even more reason to ship Chamberlain back to the bullpen, posting three scoreless innings in a 5-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

With reason to believe that Wang had returned to his old form, the pressure was mounting on Girardi to make a decision. 

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