Masahiro Tanaka Returning to Form as Yanks’ Ace
Masahiro Tanaka is starting to find his form. The New York Yankees are going to need him to keep going in order to stay on top.
The first half of the 2017 has been nothing short of a disappointment for Masahiro Tanaka.
The Yankee ace has been brutally inconsistent, giving up home runs and runs at a clip that is uncommon for a pitcher with the arsenal that he has. After putting together a string of three straight consecutive wins and starts in which he pitched well, Tanaka may finally have returned to the dominant pitcher he’s been since 2014.
After two awful starts to open up the season where he failed to pitch past five innings and had an
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ERA of 11.74, Tanaka finished April off with three straight wins.
He went 6.1 innings against the St. Louis Cardinals, seven innings against the White Sox and pitched a complete game, three-hit shutout against the Boston Red Sox. That success transitioned into May for his first two starts, but five consecutive losses later, and Tanaka was in shambles.
By the end of his five-game slide that spread all the way into June, Tanaka had amassed a 6.55 ERA. He’d given up 35 hits, 27 earned runs and 11 home runs while only managing to pitch into the seventh inning just once.
His splitter had less movement on it than in previous years, and hitters were able to stay behind
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them and hit the ball to all parts of the park. Fast forward to last night’s 6-3 win against the Toronto Blue Jays and the last three starts in general, and Tanaka has been tough to hit.
Tanaka’s eight-inning gem against the Texas Rangers and Yu Darvish signaled that the righty may have figured something out, as he kept a potent Texas offense at bay with just three hits and no runs.
His next start in Chicago, although not as pretty, still got the job done, as he gave up two runs on six hits and got the win. Monday night’s start suggested that Tanaka, who gave up one run on five hits in seven innings, is back and has left his poor outings from the first few months of the season behind. He’s cut his ERA to 5.25, and has given up just three runs on 14 hits while striking out 22 batters and surrendering no home runs.
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Those numbers are significantly better than those Tanaka sported during his five consecutive losses, and suggest that he may be back to his typical form as the ace of the staff. Just in time for a difficult divisional race with the Red Sox.