A No. 1 grows in the Bronx by Dan Graziano Thursday June 19, 2008, 9:53 PM NEW YORK -- It tempts and tantalizes, this powerful young right arm. You watch Joba Chamberlain pitch and your mind starts to race ahead -- months ahead, years ahead, imagining what he might someday be if his talent and his luck and his work ethic all stay together and grow together. You watch 98-mph fastballs and disappearing sliders and hitters who have no chance, and you realize what the Yankees are talking about when they say the guy can be a No. 1 starting pitcher. "Without guys like Joba, you can't win championships," Alex Rodriguez said after yesterday's game, in which Chamberlain struck out nine lame-looking San Diego Padres in 5 2/3 innings. "That's how you win championships -- with guys like Joba and (Chien-Ming) Wang at the front end." Of course, Wang is now hurt. The No. 1 starter who won 19 games for the Yankees in each of the past two seasons is out, maybe for the season, and there's a void there. No matter how solid or reliable they may be, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Darrell Rasner and Dan Giese will not be No. 1 pitchers. Neither will Ian Kennedy or Phil Hughes, if they make it back from their injuries, or Sidney Ponson, if he can keep from punching anybody out before he gets here from Scranton. But Chamberlain can be. The Yankees have ample reason to believe he someday will be. That's what gets them so excited talking about him. "Toronto has three of them," Rodriguez said, generously referring to the Blue Jays' impressive starting troika of Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett and Dustin McGowan. "Boston has one of them (Josh Beckett). If you don't have guys like that, you don't win." The problem is, of course, that Chamberlain isn't there yet. As awesome as his talent is, there remains a gap between what he is now and what he can or will someday be. That's what the Yankees and their fans need to remember about Chamberlain as they go forward in need of a No. 1. "He's going to have to guard against these mental lapses where he doesn't focus so much on where he puts the ball," Pettitte said. "I mean, his stuff is so good, I think sometimes he probably feels like he can get away with just letting it go and not worry about, 'I need to get this one in on this guy,' when in fact you do need to get it in, you can't just leave it out over the plate." Pettitte said he saw some of that from Chamberlain yesterday, when he loaded the bases with nobody out in the second, or when the first two batters in the fourth reached base against him. Of course, he also saw what followed. The Padres didn't score a run in the second, and only got one in the fourth, because once he got into the messes, Chamberlain started focusing more. "When he gets in trouble, you see how he locks in," Pettitte said. "I mean, it's like, all of a sudden, he's just striking everybody out." That's where the physical talent meets the mental requirements of the No. 1's job. Chamberlain knows he can strike batters out -- particularly batters on a brutal team like the Padres, who just whiffed a stunning 40 times in this three-game series. He knows, when the bases are loaded and nobody's out, that he has the ability to escape without a run. "You get up in the morning, and when you're washing your hair and brushing your teeth, you know you're going to have to get out of a jam that day," Chamberlain said. "You've just got to try and be that much better in those situations." It helps to have an arm like his. Of the 100 pitches he threw in this game, 97 were either fastballs or sliders. "One of the best sliders I've ever seen," Pettitte said. "Period." But this remains an ongoing process. He needed 100 pitches to get through 5 2/3 innings against a weak National League lineup. Had the opponent been the Boston Red Sox, those 100 pitches might not have gotten him through four innings. He might not have gotten away with the lapses Pettitte described. He is still learning, and as brilliant as he can be, he is still not the No. 1 starter the Yankees need right now. He could be next year, or by the end of this year, or even by the All-Star break. With talent like this, you can't really forecast these things. The key for the Yankees is to stick to what they're doing, not get too excited and enjoy watching the slow, steady blossoming of a potential star pitcher. And if they do that, and Joba Chamberlain keeps pitching the way he's pitching and learning the way he's learning, then before they know it, they won't need a No. 1 starter anymore. They'll have grown one. http://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/2008/06/a_no_1_grows_in_the_bronx.html --

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