Thursday, June 12, 2014

Tanaka's Complete Game Leads Yankees to Second Straight Win Over Mariners

Going into tonight's middle game in Seattle, it was already known that Masahiro Tanaka is the Yankees ace.

The Japanese rookie, 9-1 with a 2.02 ERA in his first 12 major league starts, had already won three outings in a row, never giving up more than one earned run.

Tonight, that hot streak almost continued, with Tanaka surrendering just two earned trips around the bases over a full 9 innings as the Yanks beat the Mariners 4-2. 

Over the contest's first three frames, Tanaka didn't strike anyone out, although he was perfect, not giving up a base runner/hit until one out in the bottom of the fourth. 

In that AB, #19 did allow a pair of singles, something that didn't end up effecting his final line, as the 25-year-old got Logan Morrison swinging to end the threat.

From then until the bottom of the eighth, Tanaka became unhittable, retiring 8 hitters in a row while recording 6 of his 11 strikeouts.

In the ninth, the youngster did run into a little bit of trouble (surrendering a two-run home run to Robinson Cano), but overall, he was still pretty dominant, winning his 10th game of the year while also keeping his league-best ERA at a nice, 2.02.

Backing up the $155 million man on offense was the always solid Jacoby Ellsbury and Mark Teixeira, who collected the team's only big hits off Chris Young (5 IP, 4 ER) in the third and fifth.

To start off the night of scoring, Ellsbury singled in Brian Roberts (extending his current hitting streak to 15 games), followed later by a wall-scraping, three-run home run from Teixeira, making the contest somewhat of a runaway. 

Those two knocks were the Pinstripes' only with RISP in eight chances, although that probably shouldn't matter, as the team did still score 4 times in the series-clinching W.

3 comments:

  1. I'm so excited about the future with Tanaka. Great signing!

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  2. Even if he opts out after the deal is done I truly think we get the best of what he has to offer in the states

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    Replies
    1. The 2017 offseason could really be an interesting one.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)