Tampa, Fla., March 4, 2014 — Coming off four straight wins, David Phelps was handed the ball to start the prime time game against the visiting Orioles Tuesday night, and he succeeded, with mixed results. He almost made it through three innings and allowed one run, but his outing could have been titled “Surviving Adversity.”

He allowed hits to the first two up in both the first and second, and then a leadoff triple to former Royal David Lough to start the third. Ryan Flaherty’s double in the second set the O’s up with second and third and no outs once Phelps had used a double play ball to escape the first. And it was in the second that he did his best work, keeping Baltimore off the board with a foul pop, a called strike out, and a ground out. The magic ended in the third, as Jemile Weeks delivered Lough with a grounder. Phelps followed by striking out Delmon Young, but an ensuing walk drove him to 46 pitches, and out of the game.

The double good news was that, first, the Yanks had just scored two runs, and therefore were still up, 2-1; and that with one-time Yank Steve Pearce due up, mystery veteran lefty Matt Thornton finally made an appearance. With a one-pitch fielder’s choice grounder to short, Matt had a successful Yankee debut.

The bad news, as it turned out, was that the home team had bunched five hits into their second inning rally to score the two runs, and they would add but two more the rest of the way. The home second began well, with a Brian Roberts base hit — he has hit safely on successive days, his first two safeties of the Spring. Unfortunately, Eduardo Nunez promptly grounded into a twin killing. With two outs and no one on, Francisco Cervelli homered deep to left for a 1-0 lead, then seeming solar-powered Yangervis Solarte crowned three straight singles with an rbi base hit to left, the first of his we’ve seen under the stars. Jacoby Ellsbury followed with the hardest ball he has yet to hit, a deep but too high drive to right, and the onslaught was over, 2-0 Yanks.

That may sound like good news, but once Lough cut that lead to one, the feeling around the Stadium that at least one more run would be needed was palpable. Josh Stinson gave the Bombers back-to-back walks in the third, but a pop up and grounder to first got him out of trouble. A two-out walk to Cervelli in the sixth provided the next Yankee base runner, but Dean Anna took a third strike to end the frame.

The Yankee pitching that followed was great, as Brian Gordon, who had a rough outing in Lakeland Friday, and Chris Leroux retired nine straight to bring the 2-1 lead through three more innings. Two-year AAA reliever Chase Whitley came on and got two strikes on the first four batters of the seventh, but retired none of them: a single, hit by pitch, single, and walk tied the game. He got Jonathan Schoop swinging, but Julio Borbon’s rbi ground out to second scored the third run.

Cesar Cabral and Preston Claiborne finished off the O’s in the eighth and ninth, but the damage was done. The debuting Scott Sizemore, who made a fine play on the Borbon rbi grounder, and Luis Arcia had late singles, but the Yanks could mount no response, and Brock Huntzinger removed all doubt by striking out the side in the bottom of the ninth, for the 3-2 Baltimore win.

So we head back North after a sweet and successful stay. Counting the win over South Florida, where we arrived for the end, we watched, recorded, and rooted on the Yanks through eight games, to a 5-3 record, which included a four-game winning streak. Some players did great, some well, some not so much. We certainly have seen more good than bad. But we watched Chase Whitley pitch three times, and in the first and third of those he did this: allowed the first several batters he faced to reach safely. On Thursday in Tampa, it was a walk and four hits, including a home run. Today showed improvement, just two singles, a walk and a hit by pitch.

To start this game, David Phelps, who cut his own pitching teeth in AAA, managed to hold the opposition to very little output despite repeated threats. Whitley does not at this point have the mound presence to pull that off. With a 4-1 record in games in which Chase has not appeared, I am currently not eager to see another potential win

Whitleyed down

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!