BURST TO FIRST
Tanaka regains form as Yanks pop to top of AL East
Like several other teams, the Yankees believe Sonny Gray is the pitcher they must have to bathe in postseason success.
By Monday afternoon, the baseball universe will know if the Athletics deal the best starter on the trade market or keep him.
Whichever way the Gray drama ends, the Yankees will still be basking in the afterglow of Masahiro Tanaka’s sensational outing Friday night, when he dominated the Rays en route to a 6-1 victory that was witnessed by 40,470 at Yankee Stadium.
“I hadn’t been pitching that well against this team this season and I wanted to give a strong performance,’’ said Tanaka, who was spanked twice by the Rays at Tropicana Field this year but toyed with them Friday, when he fanned a careerhigh 14, allowed a seasonlow two hits and retired the first 17 batters he faced.
When Tanaka gave up a two-out single to Adeiny Hechavarria in the sixth inning, the perfect game and no-hitter vanished, but the crowd gave Tanaka a standing ovation.
“Hopefully I was able to entertain everybody,’’ said Tanaka (8-9), who won for the first time since July 3.
The 55-46 Yankees’ fifth straight victory and seventh in eight games pushed them past the Red Sox into first place in the AL East by one-half length. It’s the first time since June 21 the Yankees have been on top by themselves.
“It’s pretty important,’’ said Brett Gardner, who had one of three Yankees home runs, leading off the home first with his 19th homer. Aaron Judge and Clint Frazier also hit homers. “There is still a long way to go but all the games are important.’’
Tanaka has been a mystery for most of this season. There have been glimpses of greatness that have been overshadowed by stretches of inconsistency and ineffectiveness.
From the start, it was easy to see Tanaka wasn’t going to be ineffective. He whiffed the first five Rays and seven of the initial nine.
“Kept us off balance. It wasn’t like we were missing pitches. It was more like he was making a lot of quality to perfect pitches,’’ Rays manager Kevin Cash said of Tanaka’s slider and split. “Lived in the bottom of the zone. He was painting at the bottom of the zone. You could tell early from the swings guys were taking that he had really good late stuff, deceptive stuff.’’
Lucas Duda, who joined the Rays from the Mets on Friday, ruined Tanaka’s shutout bid with a homer in the seventh but praised the Yankees right-hander.
“For the most part he did [an] outstanding job of locating and keeping the ball down,’’ said Duda, who was impressed by Tanaka’s splitter. “He was keeping it down and locating it. He was on tonight.’’
Despite how dominant
Tanaka was, the Yankees only led 2-0 until the home fifth, when Frazier crushed a threerun homer with two outs to push the advantage to 5-0.
“Trying to hit a line drive up the middle,’’ Frazier said of his two-out approach that resulted in his fourth homer, which landed deep in the leftfield seats and put the Rays in a deep hole.
Nothing in Tanaka’s recent history against the Rays indicated he was in for the scintillating performance. In two road games against the Rays this season, Tanaka was 0-2 with a 20.67 ERA and had given up 17 hits in 5 2/3 innings.
Yet he dominated Friday.
“He was incredible. He attacked the zone,’’ said Judge, whose 33rd homer in the fourth made it 2-0. “That’s what you expect out of your ace.’’
Luis Severino is the house ace at the moment, but Gray would replace him in that role. However, neither of them are likely to be as good as Tanaka was Friday, regardless of what club Gray is working for Tuesday.