Yankees: Masahiro Tanaka's resurgence a bright spot amid slump

Wins have been hard to come by for the Yankees lately, but they’ll take some solace in their ace appearing to have rediscovered his top form.

The New York Yankees haven’t had a whole lot to cheer about recently, with the exception of Aaron Judge‘s continued heroics and a sizable contingent heading to next week’s All-Star Game. Losers of 14 of their last 20, the Yanks’ once-commanding position at the top of the AL East has evaporated and they now trail the Red Sox by four games.

However, it appears that you can add Masahiro Tanaka to the small list of things going right. It’s quite the reversal: Back when the team was rolling, a struggling Tanaka was one of the few real problems. Now the Yankees will hope their seemingly rejuvenated ace can lead them back to their winning ways.

Tanaka’s overall numbers on the year still don’t look great, but that’s a testament to how awful he was for the first two and a half months. The 28-year-old right-hander sports a 5.25 ERA, 1.36 WHIP and 3.77 K/BB ratio in 97.2 innings. That’s a far cry from the 3.12 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and 5.30 K/BB he managed over his first three seasons in Major League Baseball.

Nevertheless, Tanaka is slowly moving in the right direction after three consecutive strong outings. It started with eight scoreless innings against the Rangers on June 23 in which he allowed three hits, walked two and struck out nine. In Tanaka’s next start against the White Sox he surrendered two runs on six hits and two walks with five strikeouts over six frames. Then on Monday he limited the Blue Jays to one run on five hits and a walk in seven innings, striking out 10.

After managing just six quality starts over his first 14 outings, Tanaka has now turned in three in a row. Most importantly for the Yankees, they won all three games. In fact, three of the Yanks’ last six wins have been games Tanaka started.

The biggest difference in Tanaka’s current stretch of success is his ability to avoid home runs. He hasn’t served up a long ball in any of his last three starts. In his first 14 outings he allowed 21, for a staggering 2.47 homers per nine innings.

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Tanaka has always been a pitcher who thrives on command of his various pitches. When his splitter and slider are hanging up in the strike zone, he typically gets punished… emphatically. He’s done a much better job keeping his offerings low. This has also allowed him to collect more strikeouts with high fastballs. Tanaka is enjoying his highest K/9 rate (9.0) since his rookie season (9.3). Even during bad starts he was typically fanning about a batter per frame.

The recipe for success hasn’t changed for Tanaka; he just had a very difficult time trying to implement it during most of the season’s first half. If he has indeed figured it out, the Yankees have to be thrilled, despite their swoon over the past few weeks. Having an ace who is actually pitching like an ace every five days could help reverse their fortunes.

Of course, there have been false alarms with Tanaka before. After two sub-par outings to start the year, he spun off three quality starts, including a complete game shutout against the Red Sox (a “Maddux”, no less) that prompted everyone to proclaim he was back on track. It didn’t happen. The Yanks can only hope this time is different.

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They’ll also need a couple of the other underachieving members of their rotation to get it together. After a strong beginning to the season, Michael Pineda and Luis Severino have been noticeably more inconsistent lately. Not being able to depend on their starters for six or more quality innings on a night-to-night basis has been a big part of the Yankees’ recent slide.

Tanaka won’t have the season he envisioned in spring training, but he can still make sure the second half of it is worth remembering.

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