New York Yankees: Tanaka succeeds, but the team continues to struggle

The New York Yankees are in the middle of their biggest skid of the season. One bright spot was the big outing out of struggling starter Masahiro Tanaka.

The New York Yankees find themselves in the midst of their worst struggle of the 2017 season.

After a red hot start, the Bronx Bombers have come to a grind halt. They dropped two of three in their latest series against the Texas Rangers, and it calls for a big trade deadline move.

The pitching staff gave up a total of 16 runs in three games.

Terrible.

Awful.

Abysmal.

Pick any synonym, but that is a horrible statistic. The pitching staff is absolutely exposed at this point, and they have to get back on track.

If that means Chad Green gets a few spot starts, so be it. Or the team could make a push for a starter like Yu Darvish. There needs to be a change of pace in the Bronx, and it has to come from the pitching staff.

There was few positives to draw from this series, but there were a few.

The biggest positive was the awesome performance out of ace pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. After several awful outings in-a-row, Tanaka finally logged his best performance to date.

He went eight shutout innings, had nine strikeouts, and only gave up three hits en route to a no decision.

That stat line is exactly what the Yankees need from their should-be ace. It’s what fans have been waiting for all season.

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If Tanaka can keep on track, and the rest of the staff can follow his lead, the New York Yankees will get back to the top of the AL East.

I’m by no means thrilled with dropping two games to the Rangers, but Tanaka potentially turning it around is whipped cream on top of garbage at this point.