Perhaps the only thing better than beating David Price on Tuesday would have been beating Joba Chamberlain.
The Yankees failed at both in a 4-3, 12-inning loss to the Tigers.
They coughed up a lead against Price in his debut with the Tigers and then couldn’t finish the job with Chamberlain on the mound in his return to The Bronx.
Chamberlain, who entered to boos in the ninth, exited to even more when he hit Derek Jeter with one out in the 10th — and he even stuck his tongue out at Jeter before the at-bat.
For the Yankees, though, the end of a three-game winning streak is more damaging than Chamberlain’s antics.
“We just need to win games,” general manager Brian Cashman said before the loss. “We just have to win every day.”
With a two-run lead against the Tigers and their trade deadline prize, Price, the Yankees were in good shape.
But Hiroki Kuroda gave up a run in each of his last two innings in a seven-inning outing, and a tired bullpen that was without David Robertson and Adam Warren finally faltered. Matt Daley, recalled Monday for his fourth stint of the season with the Yankees, surrendered a 12th-inning homer to Alex Avila that provided the decisive run.
“We didn’t give them the game,” said Chase Headley, whose fly ball to deep right field to lead off the bottom of the 12th against Joe Nathan fell just short of tying the score.
True, but the Yankees squandered some opportunities earlier that certainly stung afterwards, as they remained a game behind Toronto for the second AL wild-card spot.
Perhaps their best chance came in the ninth after Carlos Beltran led off with a single. Brian McCann, who homered in the second, saw the Tigers still playing him with a severe shift and considered bunting down the third-base line against Price.
Instead, he flied out to left and the Yankees didn’t score.
“I was trying to hit a single to the left side,” McCann said. “I saw them all over there [on the right side of the infield]. The next time, if I’m gonna have that mindset, I might as well lay it down.”
Chamberlain finished the ninth and then hit Jeter with two outs an inning later. He apologized and Jeter appeared to have no problem with the plunking.
“I never felt worse in my life,” Chamberlain said. “It was awful.”
The Yankees didn’t threaten after that, giving the Tigers a chance to pounce.
Daley came on to get the final out of the 11th before making a mistake to Avila.
“I wanted to go fastball in with that pitch and it ran back over the plate, right into the barrel of the bat,” Daley said. “It’s so frustrating because those are the situations you want to be in, with the game on the line.’’
Price was the second of three straight AL Cy Young Award winners to face the Yankees, sandwiched between Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, who will take the mound Wednesday.
It was Price’s first start since being dealt by Tampa Bay shortly before last Thursday’s non-waiver trade deadline in a move that gave the Tigers arguably the best starting rotation in the league.
He gave up three runs in 8 ²/₃ innings against Kuroda, who was at times dominant against a potent Detroit lineup.
After retiring 14 straight, Kuroda gave up a leadoff homer to Andrew Romine in the sixth, which made it 3-2, and surrendered another run in the seventh.
“We had a chance to beat him,” Brett Gardner said of Price. “We’ve seen him quite a bit. He was the same pitcher, just a different uniform.”