His bullpen days are behind him and maybe so are the minor leagues. Fresh off a championship season with the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats, rookie Gustavo Chacin last night was dropped into the proverbial fire as he made his major-league debut against the fabled Yankees in the House That Ruth Built.
This year the Yankees are a club that chews up pitchers -- just ask Sunday's loser Pedro Martinez of the Boston Red Sox -- and especially rookies but Chacin, 23, proved to be as mentally tough as Europe's Ryder Cup victors.
Showing little in the way of nerves until the eighth inning, Chacin, for the most part, calmly sent the mighty Yankees packing. He held them to three hits and two earned runs in his seven-plus innings in pitching the Jays to a 6-3 victory.
Any way you slice it, it was an outstanding debut.
"The most important thing was he went to the mound and he threw strikes," Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi said of Chacin's performance. "He didn't panic and was able to get some key double plays.
"His cutter was good, his two-seamer away was good and the thing that impressed me was that in the fifth inning he broke out his curve ball and showed he could throw it for strikes. He showed a lot of poise."
So is he in the mix for a starting job in 2005?
"Definitely," Ricciardi replied.
Chacin's performance was as remarkable as his 2004 season where he went 16-2 with a 2.92 ERA for New Hampshire followed by a 2-0 stint with triple-A Syracuse.
The Yankees had never seen Chacin before, which no doubt aided his cause, but on the season they've been pounding left-handers. Coming into the contest they owned a decisive 35-10 record against southpaws, including a spectacular 21-4 mark against left-handed starters at home.
That's how good he was.
"The thing for me was that he only tried to overthrow one pitch the entire game and that was to Ruben Sierra," pitching coach Gil Patterson said. "Other than that he was great. He showed great poise and never got rattled even with guys on base."
Chacin didn't know he would be starting until the night before.
"I was a little bit nervous at the start but after I threw my first couple of pitches I was feeling pretty good," he said. "I just tried to keep the ball down in the zone.
"It's a big difference coming here to Yankee Stadium and these guys. I tried to do the same thing here as in double-A, don't be too perfect and (let them) put the ball in play."
Chacin was sailing along but then couldn't retire a hitter in the eighth after giving up a walk, a ground-rule double and then hit Kenny Lofton to load them up.
Miguel Batista, the Jays' new closer, came on at that point and allowed a two-run single by Alex Rodriguez before getting out of the inning.
He closed it out in nail-biting fashion as with two out and the bases loaded, Russ Adams made a great play on a roller up the middle to retire Derek Jeter for the final out.
Adams also did it at the plate with three RBIs including a leadoff homer in the first.
The night, though, belonged to Chacin.
