Dependability, playoff brilliance has defined Tanaka’s tenure in Bx.

MASAHIRO Tanaka was pitching like the ace he was imported to be when he suffered an injury that led to, of all things, defining his time as a Yankee as durable and dependable.

Is that time nearing an end? Tanaka is scheduled to start Wednesday night in Game 2 against the Indians in the playoffs’ first round. Any start this season could be Tanaka’s last as a Yankee. He is a free agent after the season and he conceded when he made his final regular-season start in Buffalo that it entered his mind that it could be at least the last non-playoff start as a Yankee.

“I just thought to myself it has been seven years and it has been a quick seven years,” Tanaka said Tuesday before the Yankees’ 12-3 victory over the Indians in Game 1. “It is kind of an end to a chapter in a way, just that thought of being there for a good seven years that is what came to my mind in Buffalo.”

It was better than good. Tanaka cost $175 million between salary and posting fee and the Yankees believed they were purchasing a No. 1 starter. That evaporated when his elbow began aching in his 2014 rookie campaign. But what emerged was worth every penny to the organization — a cross between Andy Pettitte’s reliability and Orlando Hernandez’s big-game sturdiness.

It is why the Yankees will almost certainly want to retain him in tandem with Gerrit Cole to steady a rotation that is breaking in youngsters such as Deivi Garcia, Clarke Schmidt and Jordan Montgomery and reintroducing Luis Severino. And Tanaka has always seemed to love being a Yankee, embracing with joy and accountability the intensity and frequent big games.

So the money is going to be on a reunion. But how money is spent this offseason will be a relentless major league storyline. Teams took in less revenue in this COVID-19-impacted season. Already most have seen that season-ticket renewals for 2021 fall any place between down and a disaster. And there are no certainties even of crowds next year. So who knows who will spend and how much?

Aaron Boone said he hopes

Tanaka is back, citing him as a “great example for any player watching to want to latch onto … he is super prepared. Takes great care of himself. Obviously, he is completely dedicated and great at his craft. It is fun watching how precise he is and how precise he expects himself to be. Coupled with, if you get to know Masa, he is completely beloved by his teammates. He really has a great sense of humor. I have had a joy getting to know him and manage him. He’s just somebody who carries a tremendous amount of respect in the room and is still a great pitcher. He’s been a very consistent Yankee performer in all his years here.” Constancy became the hallmark once dominance faded.

Through 18 starts of his first Yankee season in 2014, Tanaka was leading the AL in ERA (2.51), striking out better than a batter an inning and was on the way to being rookie of the year and perhaps a Cy Young winner. Then word came he had a small tear in his elbow. What followed was belief that maybe the dominance was gone and Tommy John surgery would be needed. He was never a No. 1 starter again. But this is where Tanaka became Pettitte. He was a trustworthy No. 2 or 3 starter who like a metronome kept taking the ball. He never needed Tommy John surgery. His 153 starts from 2015-20 are 18th in the majors. He has a 114 ERA-plus as a Yankee — Pettitte was 115. And, like Pettitte, you could put him in a playoff game without fear he would blink. But in that arena, he was even more like El Duque because of a combination of guile and tenacity. He could remake himself on the mound, depending on what he had that game — heck, last season he abandoned his previous key pitch splitter because it wasn’t obeying and succeeded behind his slider.

In eight playoff games, Tanaka has a 1.76 ERA, never having pitched fewer than five innings, never giving up more than three earned runs and five times having given up zero or one. Most famously, with the Yankees down 2-0 in a bestof-five Division Series, he shut out the Indians for seven innings in Game 3 in 2017 to ignite the Yanks to rally to win the series. It was reminiscent of Hernandez’s seven shutout innings in Game 4 of the 1998 ALCS when the Indians led two-gamesto-one and the Yanks were teetering on wasting a 114-win season.

“The most important thing about pitching in a big game like this is to try to be yourself,” Tanaka said. Who Tanaka has been as a Yankee has cchanged over time — from ace to deppendable, big-game stalwart. Even with the downgrade, he was worth every cent.