Tanaka, Yanks hit crisis mode

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla — The Yankees officially have a Masahiro Tanaka crisis on their hands. It’s gotten so dire that pitching coach Larry Rothschild said after the $155 million righty’s latest implosion: “I think we kind of need to go back to square one and go back to some basics.” That’s the sound of alarm bells going off.

Tanaka got rocked again by the Rays on Saturday at The Trop, surrendering six earned runs, nine hits and three homers in just three-plus innings, as the Yankees lost 9-5. In his last two starts, he’s given up 14 earned runs, 16 hits and seven homers in just 4.2 innings.

The most troubling part: Everyone says he’s healthy. At least being hurt would constitute a legitimate excuse. But if he’s fine physically, there’s no excuse for these back-to-back embarrassing performances, especially when Tanaka, who's been pitching with a partially torn UCL since 2014, is being paid like an ace.

“We have to get him right,” Joe Girardi said. “I thought his slider was better today. I thought his splitter was better at times. But he made some mistakes with his fastball. His stuff was better than his last start, but it’s not where we need it to be. And we’ve got to continue to work on it.”

Girardi was dismissive of the discrepancy in Tanaka’s ERA when he pitches to Gary Sanchez (12.57 ERA in five starts) as opposed to Austin Romine (2.51 in four starts), pointing to the success the Tanaka-Sanchez battery had last season (1.94 ERA in seven starts).

At least Tanaka leads the majors in one thing: saying “I wasn’t able to get my job done today.”

Tanaka, who has had a ton of success in the past, is a perfectionist, always wanting to tinker and change things. Between starts, he decided to move back to the third-base side of the rubber from the first-base side.

“If it did (help), it didn't show,” Rothschild said. “He’s done that in the past and then he’ll move back. So it’s not something that he just did out of nowhere, but I just think we need to stabilize things and get back to doing some of the things that he does really well and just repeat those. The consistency is what’s important.”

Tanaka hasn’t been able to find his devastating splitter of late. And when that’s not working, he has to use his fastball more. The Rays seemed to enjoy that, ripping the hard stuff. Corey Dickerson led off the game by hitting a solo shot after falling down 0-2 in the count and later added a 442-foot three-run blast in the fourth. Evan Longoria also provided a solo homer in the third.

“The fastball location is really important,” Rothschild said. “Because when he misses with it, it’s not a good pitch, and he’s not going to have the power to get by with it. He’s always been really good at it, and right now it’s moving right over the plate. Whether it's trying to go in on a lefthander or go in on a righthander, they’re being yanked or pulled. I think the whole thing feeds into itself: that if he’s got the good split then some of those pitches wouldn’t have been thrown, if he had the confidence in it. So we need to get back to that.” anaka was supposed to be the only sure thing in a rotation filled with question marks. And of late, the rotation has looked more like everyone thought it would, riddled with inconsistency. His ERA currently stands at 6.56. He can opt out at season’s end, but if he keeps trending in this direction, the Yankees will be on the hook for another three years and $67 million for a pitcher who looks nothing like a No. 1.

And so it’s back to square one, back to basics, with the Yankees and Tanaka officially in crisis mode.

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