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Yankees-Tigers Preview

Apr 29, 2009 - 4:17 AM By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN STATS Senior Writer

New York (9-10) at Detroit (11-8), 7:05 p.m. EDT

While the New York Yankees have their future invested in Joba Chamberlain, the same can be said about the Detroit Tigers with Rick Porcello.

The two young right-handers square off Wednesday night when the Yankees finish a three-game road series against the Tigers.

Chamberlain (0-0, 3.94 ERA) is in his third season with New York - and first as a full-time starter. He excelled in the bullpen last year before the Yankees (10-10) opted to move the 23-year-old into the rotation in June.

In 12 starts last season, Chamberlain went 3-1 with a 2.76 ERA. He's struggled a bit with his control in three outings this year, with 10 walks in 16 innings after walking four in 5 1-3 on Friday in a 5-4 loss at Boston in 11 innings.

Chamberlain seems like a seasoned veteran compared to Porcello (1-2, 4.50), a 20-year-old who hails from West Orange, N.J. Porcello never pitched higher than Class A before this season, but has already shown why he was a first-round selection by the Tigers (11-9) in 2007.

After losing his major league debut April 9, Porcello limited Seattle to one run in seven innings 10 days later to win 8-2. He gave up five runs over six innings Friday in a 6-1 loss at Kansas City.

"I was tickled to death with Porcello," manager Jim Leyland told the Tigers' official Web site about the loss to the Royals. "In a lot of ways, I was happier with him tonight than I was when he got the win in Seattle. He found out the value of using his pitches and used them much more effectively tonight as the game went on."

Chamberlain has never started against the Tigers. He has thrown four scoreless innings of relief against them, yielding one hit.

These two starters faced each other in a spring training game March 21 as the Yankees won 4-3. Chamberlain allowed one run and four hits over 3 1-3 innings while Porcello yielded two runs and four hits in 2 1-3.

New York ended its four-game losing streak Tuesday with an 11-0 victory thanks to a 10-run outburst in the seventh inning. The Yankees had scored three runs over 24 innings before sending 14 batters to the plate in that big inning.

Jose Molina hit his second career grand slam to make it 10-0. The Yankees had six hits in the inning and drew four walks.

"That was great," said Molina, who sacrificed earlier in the inning. "I was just doing what the manager wanted me to do."

Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano went 2-for-5 to extend his hitting streak to 15 games, matching his career high. He has four straight multihit efforts, going 9-for-19 with six RBIs in that span.

New York finally slowed down Magglio Ordonez, who went 0-for-3 with a strikeout. Ordonez batted .464 (13-for-28) with 10 RBIs in his previous seven games versus the Yankees.

Detroit had a three-game winning streak snapped, suffering its first shutout of the season. The Tigers wasted starter Edwin Jackson's six scoreless innings.

"I've never seen anything like that in my life," the 64-year-old Leyland said. "You are 0-0 through six, and then it is 10-0? That's not something I ever remember."