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.
I'm so excited about the future with Tanaka. Great signing!
ReplyDeleteEven 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
ReplyDeleteThe 2017 offseason could really be an interesting one.
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