MLB

Chamberlain falls further behind in race for Yankees’ No. 5 spot

LAKELAND, Fla. — Joba Chamberlain says he knows the deal when it comes to the fifth starter’s spot in Joe Girardi’s rotation.

Now he has to start pitching like it.

“I understand what’s at stake,” Chamberlain said after getting spanked by the Tigers at Joker Marchant Stadium yesterday in a 9-8 Yankees victory. “You got to get better. You can’t worry about what [the competition] is doing. There is a sense of urgency but not a panic button.”

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Chamberlain is correct: Two outings into spring training isn’t time to panic. Chamberlain’s body of work — since walking off a Texas mound with a shoulder problem on Aug. 4, 2008, that forced him to miss a month — has been pedestrian.

In 42 games (31 starts), Chamberlain is 9-6 with a 4.59 ERA and has given up 178 hits in 1682⁄3 innings, walked 79 and fanned 147. That’s too many hits and not an acceptable walk-to-strikeout ratio.

Yes, the Yankees didn’t help him last year in the second half, when they limited his innings as a starter. And he is 24. But by now the Yankees believed Chamberlain would at least be close to a top-of-the-rotation hurler.

Yesterday when he was working on getting his pitches in on right-handed hitters, Chamberlain wasn’t easy to watch.

In 21⁄3 innings, Chamberlain gave up six runs, five hits, walked three and fanned one. Gerald Laird delivered a grand slam that highlighted a six-run third inning after Chamberlain didn’t allow a run in the first two frames.

“I got a little tired,” said Chamberlain, who was slowed by a stomach virus early in camp that cost him eight pounds and that bothered him in the last outing. But this week he declared himself at full strength.

And then he ran out of fuel.

“My delivery was a lot better, I need to keep my legs [strong]. I worked on throwing in and I didn’t cut any balls off,” said Chamberlain, who has given up eight hits and six walks in 32⁄3 spring innings. “I had a little hitch in my delivery and I fixed that. I will go to the bullpen and continue to work.”

If you forced the Yankees to tell the truth a month ago, they would have said Phil Hughes, who worked 22⁄3 innings yesterday, was the arm they wanted in the fifth spot. That’s still the way to bet, but Alfredo Aceves and Sergio Mitre have been very good, and Chad Gaudin hasn’t been terrible.

Girardi, who says the real evaluation process will begin when each hurler makes his third outing, insists it’s a five-man competition.

Can Hughes and Chamberlain land in the bullpen? Will one be a starter and the other Mariano Rivera’s set-up man? As wild as it sounds, could Chamberlain open the year as a Triple-A starter?

“I think any scenario is possible,” Girardi said. “We will have to make evaluations that we think are the best. Very few things in this game end up the way they started.”

When Chamberlain surfaced in 2007, he charged out of the bullpen with a blazing fastball, filthy slider and was embraced by everybody. As a starter, there have been glimpses of that stuff but nothing sustained.

When Chamberlain pitches Tuesday against the Astros, he will be facing the biggest spring training game of his young career. Because if Girardi is telling the truth — and there is no reason to believe he isn’t — Chamberlain’s evaluation clock will begin ticking loudly.

george.king@nypost.com