Tanaka to miss his first start

Masahiro Tanaka will not be on the Yankees’ Opening Day roster, but he may not be far behind.

Though the veteran right-hander took a key step forward Tuesday, facing live hitters for the first time since getting a line drive to the head and suffering a concussion on July 4, he still won’t be ready in time for his first turn through the rotation. If all goes as planned, Tanaka will face hitters again on Sunday in Scranton and could be ready to come off the injured list and rejoin the Yankees rotation by July 31.

In the meantime, manager Aaron Boone announced Tuesday that Michael King made the team and could be in line to pitch Sunday in a bullpen game against the Nationals to fill Tanaka’s spot.

Gerrit Cole and James Paxton will start the first two games of the season, and J.A. Happ will go Monday against the Phillies. Cole could come back on regular rest to pitch again Tuesday — especially in light of the Yankees optioning Jordan Montgomery to the alternate training site, with another starter not needed until Wednesday’s home opener.

Tanaka threw 20 pitches Tuesday at Yankee Stadium and is expected to throw 35-40 on Sunday, building him back up after the scary line drive from Giancarlo Stanton disrupted his spring training 2.0.

“It actually kind of crossed my mind for the very first pitch, but after I threw that, it was back to business, back to normal,” Tanaka said through an interpreter.

Clarke Schmidt won’t break camp with the Yankees, but the pitching prospect made the most of his opportunities in both spring trainings. The 24-year-old right-hander on Tuesday was named the 2020 James P. Dawson Award winner, given to the most outstanding Yankees rookie in spring training.

“Highly touted coming in and has delivered in every way,” Boone said. “He’s very much in the conversation to be with us at some point this season and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was — not only if he was, but if he’s playing an important role for us.”

Schmidt will head to the Yankees’ training site at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to stay ready.

A final decision has not been made on whether DJ LeMahieu, who arrived late to spring training 2.0 after recovering from COVID-19, would be ready to play on Opening Day. Boone said the club planned to talk about it Tuesday.