Masahiro Tanaka made his spring debut on Thursday night in
George M. Steinbrenner Field when the New York Yankees played host to the
Atlanta Braves and looked like the Masahiro Tanaka of old. Tanaka looked to
have zero restrictions from the elbow as he placed every one of his 18 pitches
wherever he wanted to whenever he wanted to. His velocity looked great, topping
out at 94 MPH, for where he is at in this stage of the spring and more
importantly he had no issues with the elbow that day or the next day. While the
impressive and quick work will keep the Jon Heyman’s and the Peter Gammons and
the Buster Olney’s at bay for the next four days us as Yankees fans should
temper our expectations for Tanaka.
Tanaka didn’t exactly go rogue when he decided to skip the
Tommy John surgery and instead opted to rest and rehab the partially torn ulnar
collateral ligament. Tanaka spoke to four highly respectable doctors who
reiterated the same prognoses including Dr. James Andrews. While there have
been success stories in Adam Wainwright you are still merely delaying the
inevitable. Tanaka’s elbow could last the rest of his career and his elbow
could blow out tomorrow when he is flushing the toilet.
That’s the scariest part of it all Yankees family, we’re
really in uncharted territory. Even in the success of Adam Wainwright he still
eventually had the surgery so you just never know. Tanaka could pitch the rest
of his seven year contract and be just fine, he could make it to his opt out
date and have it blow out, or it could require the surgery tomorrow. I’m not
saying all this to scare everyone I just don’t think I personally will be
getting too comfortable with Tanaka until he is no longer in pinstripes because
you just never know.
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)