TANAKA STRONG IN REHAB START
Tanaka throws 3 scoreless innings in his first rehab start
MOOSIC, Pa — He threw 41 pitches, 25 of them for strikes against a TripleA team. But all that mattered for the Yankees and Masahiro Tanaka was he made his pitches without pain or problems.
Feeling no discomfort, “not at all,” he said, Tanaka went three innings for the Yankees’ Scranton/WilkesBarre affiliate Thursday in his first rehab start. He gave up a double in a 12pitch first inning, went through a 123 second inning and then required 22 pitches to get out of the third, in which he surrendered a single but struck out two.
“I felt pretty good out there. I was able to use all my pitches. So I felt pretty good,” Tanaka, speaking through a translator, said to a gathering of more than three dozen media types at PNC Field Thursday.
Final tally: three innings, two hits, no runs, no walks, two strikeouts. He hit 92 mph with one pitch and was consistently 9091 with his fastball.
“[It was] not necessarily different from how I usually go into a game. I was looking to obviously pitch all my pitches with force and I think I was able to do that tonight,” Tanaka said.
Tanaka went on the disabled list following his last start, in Detroit on April 23, because of right wrist tendinitis and a strained right forearm. And he was shut down last season with a slight elbow ligament tear. When examined for his latest problems — the wrist and forearm — no problems were uncovered with the elbow.
Tanaka used a full assortment of pitches against Durham for SWB. His strikeouts came on a splitter and a slider, and Tanaka also mixed in several changeups. Tanaka threw a 29pitch bullpen session Monday in Washington.
“I feel pretty confident about all the pitches,” said Tanaka, who had not pitched in game action in nearly a month.
“As far as going back into a game, I think I am able to do that smoothly,” Tanaka said.
The Yankees have not placed a
timetable on when Tanaka would return, but the thinking is at least two more rehab starts. Tanaka himself was not sure.
“I can’t really say for now,” Tanaka said. “I have to look and see how I feel [Friday]. Obviously we’ll get to see our trainers back in New York, talk with the manager, coaches and sort of discuss and see what the next step would be.”
The Yankees, of course, are hoping Tanaka can regain the form he displayed at the outset of his rookie season, when he set the league on its collective ear following the Yankees’ $175 million investment to sign him.
He came back this season and was seen as the linchpin to a rotation that was riddled with questions. He began in inconsistent form but then threw seven shutout innings against Toronto and followed that by surrendering one run against the Tigers in Detroit over 6 ¹/₃ innings. And then the wrist and forearm issues arose.