LAKELAND, Fla. -- Jim Leyland gave his gut feeling soon after Spring Training began, that the Tigers would emerge from Spring Training with either too much pitching or too little.

Detroit's manager is still evaluating the pitching and his pitchers. But even if he isn't making any declarations on those fronts, Leyland saw way too many pitches on Sunday.

Leyland has talked for the past week about the importance of quick outs and lower pitch counts. He talked with reporters just before Sunday's game about the importance of fastball command. He got very little of either in Sunday's 13-2 loss to the Yankees.

With two outs in the top of the fifth inning, Detroit pitchers had retired 14 batters and walked 10. They allowed a six-run fifth inning on just three hits. The lack of command around the strike zone seemed to reflect the lack of command from the lone rotation opening for Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis.

That last part was not Leyland's evaluation. He said before Spring Training began that he would stay out of the evaluation business, which gave him a reason to not make any evaluations out of this.

"We're doing what we said we were going to do," Leyland said. "Here it is. Go show us what you can do. Guys come in trying to make the club, whether it be bullpen, fifth starter, extra player, whatever. Show us what you can do.

"Everybody's certainly getting opportunities. It's just a matter of going out, taking the bull by the horns and winning a job. You don't win jobs for anybody when you walk [that many] people in a ballgame. It's tough to win jobs like that. We had that problem all last year with too many walks."

Sunday wasn't the only sign of the problem, but it was the most glaring example.

Four of the walks came from Robertson, whose start was expected to last three innings but was limited to two by his escalating pitch count. He walked three of the first four batters he faced, including Nick Swisher on an 0-2 count, but the lefty escaped with help from a runner thrown out at second base and a quality slider for a strikeout of Johnny Damon.

When he needed a quality pitch to get out of the second inning unscathed, however, Robertson couldn't overcome another walk. This time, Jose Molina's pass following Cody Ransom's leadoff single created the traffic for Angel Berroa to clear with a three-run homer.

"Four walks is brutal," Robertson said. "I'm really kind of pitching in this big circle right now. I don't know why. I'm watching my mechanics. My ball's running a lot. It's going places, but it's running out of the zone. Whether I need to start it over the plate more, I've got to tighten up that zone."

More than the walks, Berroa's homer was an example of the other frustration for Robertson, who couldn't get the finishing pitch when he had hitters in two-strike counts. His 0-2 pitch to Berroa was a slider that came out flat, the problem with which he struggled last year. Berroa pounced and drove it out.

"I had him set up just the way I wanted him," Robertson said. "I threw a slider that just spun up there, and he golfed it out of there."

One batter later, Robertson had another 0-2 count when he tried to change speeds on Doug Bernier, who lined an opposite-field single to right.

Robertson's past starts have shown him keeping the ball on the ground. His only outs on the ground on Sunday came from a second-inning double play courtesy of Melky Cabrera.

Willis was seemingly questionable to pitch on Sunday after battling a stomach virus for two days, but he said afterward that there was no question he would take the mound. He threw 15 pitches to his first two batters, inducing a full-count swing from Swisher for a leadoff groundout before losing Hideki Matsui.

Willis sent down Xavier Nady with a change of speeds, capped by a swing and miss on a fastball, but he gave up back-to-back two-out hits from there. He was a strike away from escaping the inning unscathed when Molina blooped a two-run single to right.

A Cabrera single and a two-out, four-pitch walk to Swisher created the chance for further damage the next inning before Matsui flew out to center. Still, that just about hit Willis' pitch limit.

"I felt like my command was good, as far as throwing the ball downhill and getting the guys to make contact," Willis said. "Hopefully, next time they hit them at somebody. Again, I feel like the last two times out, I was able to get guys to hit the ball, put the ball in play, get ahead in counts and be able to come from behind in counts. I felt good today, as far as how I threw the ball."

Add in four walks over two-thirds of a disastrous inning from Scott Williamson in the Yankees' six-run fifth, and the first half of the game felt like a long afternoon in itself. But it also felt like a continuation of the previous couple of games. Starter Edwin Jackson walked his way into first-inning trouble on Saturday after the Yankees waited out Justin Verlander for deep counts on Friday night.

"It doesn't matter where you play or at what level you play -- you give yourself no chance if you walk [that many] guys in a Major League game," Leyland said. "That's just uncalled for, in my opinion. That's uncalled for at any level, and that pretty much sums up today. No one in particular -- everybody had their part, I guess."

Leyland wants no part of evaluating the No. 5 starter situation right now. Still, the Tigers' upcoming trip to Jupiter, Fla., will feature two more starting candidates who might provide an answer.

Rick Porcello will make his second start in his emerging case to crack the Majors at age 20 when he takes the mound Monday night against the Marlins. Zach Miner, who has struggled but walked only one batter in seven innings this spring, could enhance his credentials with a solid outing against the Cardinals on Tuesday afternoon.

That still won't clear up the starting picture when the Tigers return to Lakeland on Tuesday night. But at least it could clear up some of the traffic on the basepaths.

"I've said it many times -- I think we've got plenty of equipment in this camp," Leyland said. "I can't control the results. I look at the results, but I can't control them. That's up to the player or the pitcher, so we'll keep putting them out there."