Masahiro Tanaka continues dominance in postseason
NEW YORK — Masahiro Tanaka ranks among Hall of Famers after another powerful postseason start earned the Japanese right-hander his fourth career playoff win.
“I always feel good when we’re giving the ball to Masa, and I feel like he’s in a pretty good place here after one start now in the postseason,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Tanaka held the Twins to one earned run on three hits over five strong innings in the Yankees’ 8-2 romp over Minnesota in Game 2 of the ALDS on Saturday night in the Bronx. The 30-year-old has allowed two earned runs or less in all six of his postseason starts, but that’s not even the most impressive part.
He lowered his postseason ERA to 1.54 after the outing, which places him fifth on MLB’s all-time playoff ERA leaderboard. Among pitchers that have recorded five or more playoff starts, Tanaka trails only Sandy Koufax (0.95 ERA), Christy Mathewson (1.06), Eddie Plank (1.32) and Bill Hallahan (1.36) in that category.
Even though Tanaka is gaining the reputation of a big-game pitcher at this time of year, the modest right-hander — in his sixth season with the Yankees — said he brushes aside his postseason success.
“I actually don’t get too caught up on being good in the postseason and all that,” Tanaka said, via Yankees translator Shingo Horie. “Come to think about it, I think it’s still a small sample. My thing is just go out there and be the best that you can be.”
Tanaka struck out two batters each in the second and third innings, and would strike out seven in five innings. Of the 83 pitches he threw, 35 were sliders. Tanaka got 16 swinging strikes total, and seven of them came on his filthy splitter. His fastball topped out at 93.3 mph and he threw his heater nearly 20% of the time. Just about every tool in Tanaka’s arsenal was in postseason form.
“The off-speed stuff, slider and splitter, were both pretty consistent throughout, which helped me and made me successful in the game,” Tanaka said. “I wish the fastball was a little bit better, tried to use that a little bit, but I feel like I was able to use that enough so both the off-speed stuff were working.”
It would have been simple for Tanaka to lie down and take it easy after the Yankees provided him with eight runs of support, capped by Didi Gregorius’ third-inning grand slam. But these were the home run-happy Twins and Tanaka was not about to let them claw back on his account.
While the Yankees rallied for seven runs in the third inning, Tanaka’s arm was cooling off in the dugout. It’s possible the extended time away from the mound had an impact on the right-hander’s rhythm. Tanaka opened the fourth inning with a one-out walk to Nelson Cruz, a line drive to Eddie Rosario and an RBI single to Mitch Garver to put the Twins on the board.
“You try to stay warm, keep the arm loose,” Tanaka said. “You play catch down there underneath the dugout. But I gave up a run after I came in after that long inning, so I feel like I need to do a better job of keeping myself warm and game ready.”
Suddenly, Minnesota needed just one big swing to make it a closer ballgame. But Tanaka bore down and whiffed the next two batters to end the inning and the threat, punctuated by a threepitch strikeout to slugger Miguel Sano.
“He’s just really good at his craft,” Boone said. “He understands his mechanics, can do a lot of things with the ball. He gave us what we needed and set a tone to send us to Minnesota in a good position.”