Who takes the fifth spot in Yankees rotation? With Bombers, who cares?

Since the beginning of spring training — the beginning of last August, more accurately — people have clamored for the Yankees to replace Ivan Nova in the rotation following each inconsistent outing.

With Nova nursing a triceps injury, David Phelps had a chance to reward the faith of his supporters. A solid outing would surely start a movement to keep the 26-year-old in the rotation when Nova is healthy, causing a controversy the likes of which we haven’t seen since the great (absurd?) Mark Sanchez-Tim Tebow “duel” of 2012.

Then Phelps blew a 4-0 lead against the woeful Astros and reminded everybody why he’s filling in as the No. 5 starter.

“I’m really frustrated with today, because I felt like I could have just really grabbed the reins and taken care of things,” Phelps said when asked about pushing himself into the full-time rotation mix. “But it’s baseball. Stuff happens, and you’ve just got to do better next time.”

The words were slightly different than Nova’s standard postgame interview, but the sentiment was the same. Phelps didn’t think he pitched badly — and he didn’t — but he let one inning get away from him and wound up leaving the game with the score tied at 4 instead of handing a lead over to his bullpen.

Phelps was asked whether games such as these serve as a learning experience for a young pitcher, but he wasn’t using his inexperience as an excuse.

“At some point, the training wheels have to get cut off,” Phelps said. “You look at the spring, the outings when I did struggle, it was always one inning. I just have to make the pitch when I need to, not let it snowball.”

Sound familiar?

Nova has been dreadful since last year’s All-Star break. Nobody is arguing that fact. But after watching Phelps melt down in the fourth inning Wednesday, blowing a four-run lead against the hapless Astros, can anybody say with confidence that he gives the Yankees a better chance to win every five days than a healthy Nova does?

I have been one of Nova’s harshest critics — and with good reason. He has electric stuff and has shown flashes of brilliance, but he has also shown an inability to be consistent, letting a bad inning turn into a bad outing and a bad outing to morph into a bad month.

Here’s the thing people keep forgetting: we’re talking about the fifth starter. Quick, name the best No. 5 starter in the majors. Exactly.

There might be seven or eight teams with legitimate five-man rotations, and even those teams have question marks. Nova and Phelps have shown themselves to be serviceable more often than not, which is all a team can ask for when that spot comes up. “This team is built around our starting pitching,” Chris Stewart said. “When our No. 5 guy rolls around, we’re not too scared.”

That’s because CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda and Andy Pettitte are a combined 11-5 with a 2.88 ERA in 17 starts, while Phil Hughes has overcome his rough start, posting three very solid outings in a row.

Heck, the Yankees won the 2009 World Series after using what was essentially a four-man rotation during the regular season. Sergio Mitre and Chien-Ming Wang tied for the fifth-most starts that season with nine apiece.

Could Wang creep his way into the rotation again? The Yankees appear committed to Phelps while Nova is on the DL, although Wang, a two-time 19-game winner continues to lurk at Triple-A.

In three starts, Wang has given up two runs and walked three batters over 19 innings. Wang was throwing 90-91 mph during his start Tuesday, getting more than half his outs on ground balls during his seven-inning, one-run outing. The Yankees aren’t saying much publicly about Wang, but given that he declined to opt out of his minor-league deal on Wednesday, he must believe he has a shot to get to the Bronx.

Who knows if Wang will be able to make it all the way back to the majors, but there’s no reason to think the Yankees won’t give him a shot if Phelps and Nova continue to have their ups and downs.

Then again, if the No. 5 starter is the worst of the Yankees’ problems this season, they’re in pretty good shape.

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