Yankees GM Brian Cashman signed Japanese starter Masahiro Tanaka to a seven-year, $155 million contract in January, then spent some time deflating expectations for the right-hander. His spring performance, including his final outing Friday afternoon against the Marlins, may have reinflated those expectations.
Hiroki Kuroda started and tossed three scoreless innings before Tanaka entered the game to start the fourth. Tanaka went six innings, allowed zero runs on three hits (all singles), walked none, and struck out ten. To put that in perspective, there were only eight games pitched in all of 2013’s regular season that matched Tanaka’s outing: six or fewer innings pitched, ten or more strikeouts, and zero runs allowed.
| Player | Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Verlander | 2013-09-29 | DET | MIA | L 0-1 | 6.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| Justin Verlander | 2013-09-23 | DET | MIN | L 3-4 | 6.0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 12 |
| Scott Kazmir | 2013-09-06 | CLE | NYM | W 8-1 | 6.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
| Max Scherzer | 2013-08-24 | DET | NYM | W 3-0 | 6.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 11 |
| Gio Gonzalez | 2013-07-20 | WSN | LAD | L 1-3 | 6.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 |
| Julio Teheran | 2013-06-28 | ATL | ARI | W 3-0 | 6.0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| Tony Cingrani | 2013-04-28 | CIN | WSN | W 5-2 | 6.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 11 |
| Yu Darvish | 2013-04-24 | TEX | LAA | W 11-3 | 6.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 11 |
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/28/2014.
The Yankees’ only regret is that Tanaka didn’t turn in that impressive performance during a game that counts, but they hope he has more than one of those up his sleeve.
