Tanaka recovers after slow beginning
Good — but not good enough.
Masahiro Tanaka righted himself after two shaky starts, but the former ace wasn’t taking any bows after the Yankees rallied for a 75, 12inning victory over the Rays on Friday night at the Stadium.
“[I’m] not satisfied, obviously,” Tanaka said through an interpreter. “It’s a step forward. I had pretty bad two outings, so if you look at that, today was a good step forward. Next time out, [I’ve] got to be careful and try to get it going from the getgo.”
Tanaka, indeed, got off to a shaky start, having allowed two runs four hitters into the game. But he quickly improved, retiring the next nine batters he faced and keeping the Yankees in the game. He delivered six innings of sixhit, threerun ball while striking out five and walking just one.
“It comes down to the mechanics, a little tweak from the first inning on, which brought me back to the form that I wanted to be on,” Tanaka said. “It was just a matter of mechanics.”
Tanaka was again limited to less than 100 pitches despite a 123 sixth. He has yet to reach 100 this year, throwing 96 pitches Friday.
Manager Joe Girardi said that number likely will not increase, as the team continues to be extra careful with its highpriced righthander, who spent more than five weeks on the disabled list with tendinitis in his right wrist and a strain of his right forearm. That’s not to mention he is pitching despite a small tear in his right collateral ligament, which he suffered last year.
“I would definitely let him go over [100 pitches] if it’s easy innings and he’s sailing along,” Girardi said. “But I just felt like he has to work pretty hard in the first, and I just thought it was time to make a change.”
Tanaka threw more fourseam fastballs on Friday, and topped out at 94 mph while locating his splitfinger fastball better than in recent outings.
“The stuff is there; he just had better location tonight,” Girardi said. “He didn’t have it with the two splits in the first, but after that it was really pretty good.”