Yankees-Blue Jays: Yanks Relief Simply Comical in Chamberlain's Debut

The New York Yankees' newest hope in its rotation got off to a bad start as converted reliever-turned-starter Joba Chamberlain failed to make it past the second inning of his first Major League start. Chamberlin lasted two and one-thrd innings, allowing four walks, three strikeouts, one run, and one hit.

The 22-year-old right-hander threw almost half of his designated pitches in the first inning alone. His short outing did have its moments, as one of his fastballs was clocked at 101 miles per hour.

He also balked, allowing a runner to advance. The balk is one of the more infrequent happenings that can occur to a pitcher and many fans have never seen one in a debut

The Yankees went into the bottom of the first down 1-0, but quickly responded after Hideki Matsui singled in Johnny Damon, who had led off with a triple. Jason Giambi gave the Yanks the go-ahead run as he too singled into the hole left by the Jays' defensive shift. Damon finished just a homerun shy of batting for the cycle.

Chamberlain threw 32 strikes out his 62 pitches before being taken out by manager Joe Girardi, and received a warm ovation from the sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium. Chamberlin even tipped his hat as he walked off the field, before throwing his glove while inside the dugout.

The Yanks then called upon Dan Giese, who made his pinstripe debut—but who didn’t fair much better than Chamberlain. In his three and two-thirds innings, Giese allowed the tying run on five hits and one walk. 36 of his 65 pitches were thrown for strikes before he made way for José Veras.

Veras entered with the game tied at 2-2, but gave up the lead on a Rod Barajas run scored on a sac fly—which saw Barajas beat Melky Cabrera's poor throw to the plate by a split second. Veras only threw 16 pitches before making way for Edwar Ramírez, as the game was slowly becoming a guessing game on who Girardi would release from the bullpen next.

Ramirez's outing was by far the worst of the night, as he gave up four runs on three walks and one hit and only threw three strikes out of his 17 pitches. The boos rained down on the young Dominican as he allowed a 5-2 Yankee deficit to become a 9-2 deficit.

Latroy Hawkins finally ended the bleeding of the six-run seventh inning, and the Yankees managed to get one run back on a fielder's choice, cutting their deficit to six runs. The Jays pitching, led by starter Roy Halladay, frustrated the Yankee bats despite giving up nine hits.

Many of the 53,629 fans left before Derek Jeter tied Mickey Mantle for third on the Yankees’ career list with 2,415 hits, which was arguably the biggest highlight for the Bronx Bombers.

Tonight proved the Yankees must at least entertain the idea of acquiring a solid reliever via trade—unless they plan to begin converting everyone to starting pitchers.