Sound the alarms for awful ace
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — If only Masahiro Tanaka could cover the plate as well as raging Joe Girardi.
Three times during Girardi’s pregame press conference at Tropicana Field, a loud alarm went off signaling the dugout phones.
Alarms really sounded shortly into the game.
Tanaka once again was crushed by an opposing team. Tanaka couldn’t make it through the second inning his last time out, and on Saturday, he couldn’t get an out in the fourth inning as the Yankees were clubbed, 9-5, by the Rays at Tropicana Field in the wildest of games that included plunkings and ejections.
A lot was made of Tanaka making some mechanical adjustments, including moving to the third-base side of the rubber. That just meant he had a different view of baseballs zooming out of the ballpark.
It got really crazy in the bottom of the fifth, when Girardi and pitching coach Larry Rothschild both were ejected by home-plate umpire Scott Barry. Girardi raced over to home plate and covered up the dish with dirt.
“I might as well get my money’s worth,’’ Girardi said later.
Noted the Rays’ Corey Dickerson, who homered twice off Tanaka: “I thought they thought some calls should have been called. It was the heat of the moment, but I did get to witness it. It was funny.”
The Yankees were not laughing.
Girardi channeled his inner Billy Martin, then with veins popping, screamed at Barry before exiting. Barry did not bend over to clean the plate and simply kicked some of the dirt off with his shoes.
Dickerson was hit in the shoulder by Tommy Layne in the fifth. The Rays countered by hitting Aaron Judge in the ribs in the sixth, forcing the ejection of Rays starter Matt Andriese.
Dirt Dog Girardi had to be frustrated by what he saw in Tanaka. The Rays have a great approach to Tanaka and expect other teams to follow suit, laying off pitches below the strike zone.
At this stage of the game, the Yankees should be so lucky as to have Tanaka opt-out after this season. Tanaka lasted three innings and surrendered nine hits, six runs, walked three and threw a wild pitch while serving up three home runs, two to the leftyhitting Dickerson and one to Yankees killer Evan Longoria.
The Yankees have lost 7 of 10, their starting pitching is collapsing, and Tanaka can’t get outs. In his outing against the Rays on Opening Day, Tanaka didn’t last three innings and gave up seven runs. In his past three outings against the Rays, Tanaka has surrendered nine home runs over 11 2/3 innings.
The Rays are onto something with the struggling right-hander, who now owns a 6.56 ERA. Over his past two starts, Tanaka has surrendered seven home runs in 4 2/3 innings. No Tanaka. No chance. The Yankees starting pitching was questionable coming into the season and is really a problem now. The Yankees will turn to CC Sabathia on Sunday to try to clean up the mess.
The bullpen is being overused, and all that will affect the Yankees.
Good offense is being wasted by some really bad pitching as the Glass Slipper is beginning to fall off the Yankees. Rothschild is trying everything he can to get Tanaka going: different arm angles, different starting spots on the rubber. The bottom line is hitters are not going for his pitches out of the zone.
Consider this one number and it tells you everything you need to know about Tanaka: In his past two starts, Tanaka has struck out seven batters and allowed seven home runs.
If he can’t find his groove, it will unsettle the entire rotation and will continue to be a burden on the bullpen.
Tanaka needs to be dominant, not a punching bag.
“I just have to be better,” Tanaka said. “Learn from my mistakes.”
There is plenty. The alarms sounded before and during the game.