Tanaka provides reason for hope
AS SOPHIA from “The Golden Girls” used to say, picture it: Masahiro Tanaka in American League Division Series Game 1. Sonny Gray in Game 2. CC Sabathia in Game 3. Luis Severino, having already prevailed in the AL wild-card game, returning for Game 4.
Not bad, right? With Jaime Garcia or Jordan Montgomery as the long reliever, that unit should excite you as a Yankees fan.
It seems like less of a fantasy after Sunday afternoon’s action, when Tanaka impressed again and the Yankees benefited from the good fortune of the Mariners wagering on their opponents (just kidding, I think) to register a 10-1 victory at Yankee Stadium, giving them a second straight series triumph, ending a streak of 11 consecutive rubber-game losses and pulling within 2 ½ games of the cooled-off Red Sox in the AL East.
“I feel strong,” Tanaka said through an interpreter. “Today, I think it was even better than the last outing. So I’m going to prepare myself for my next outing and try to go out there and do some good stuff out there.”
This marked Tanaka’s second start since his brief stint (12 days) on the disabled list with right shoulder inflammation. He has totaled 14 innings and allowed only four runs in that span, with the M’s managing just one run on six hits and a walk while striking out 10 times over seven frames on Sunday.
“The strikeout was big for him today,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “When you have that type of lead early on, he’s able to pitch a little differently, and it was a different ballgame after they got the big lead.”
It ranks as a miracle that Servais spoke coherently after watching his team, one of several fighting for that second wild-card spot, commit five errors in the bottom of the first inning, the most in an inning by any club since the Cubs made a handful of flubs at St. Louis on July 2, 1977. The Yankees had little choice but to jump out to a 6-1 lead, thereby rendering Tanaka’s prior adversity moot.
In the top of the first, the Mariners scored a run and put men on second and third with one out, and you wondered whether Tanaka would revert to the Bad Masa who emerged as a Yankees villain earlier this season. Instead, Tanaka struck out Kyle Seager on a 95.8-mph fastball, as per MLB.com, and retired Mitch Haniger on a flyout to center f ield to escape further damage.
“It took him a couple of hitters to get his stuff going,” said Joe Girardi, who received his second ejection in four days after disagreeing with an upheld replay review in the third inning. “You look at three of the four first balls that were hit, they were hit hard. And then after that, there wasn’t a ton that were hit hard.”
“I think it could’ve been worse, the first inning. I was able to limit the damage,” Tanaka said. “Because of me being able to do that, that led to the quicker outs starting in the second inning.”
And that led to a Yankees laugher, a hammock-swinger ahead of this week’s treacherous home schedule: Three games with the Indians, then four with the Red Sox. The Yankees find themselves back in control of their division destiny. Like all teams, they’d love to avoid the harrowing one-and-done format of the wild-card game and jump straight to the division series. With f ive weeks to go, time remains for the Yankees to surge or slide, and for that imagined starting rotation to experience pain or suckitude. Yet it’s far better at this juncture for such images to be possible rather than impossible.
“It’s encouraging to see him throw the ball the way he is,” Chase Headley said of Tanaka.
If the team-wide encouragement rate s this high a week from now, then you can fantasize even more seriously — with Severino pulled from the unnecessary wild-card game and slotted right for ALDS Game 1.