Masahiro Tanaka’s Yankees debut is still months away, but his YES Network debut will come on Monday.
The Yankees network announced it will air one of Tanaka’s starts in Japan last season. Spoiler alert: Tanaka pitches well in the game.
In the Rakuten Golden Eagles’ victory over the Yomiuri Giants, Tanaka throws seven shutout innings and improves to 8-0 on his way to 24-0. YES Network analysts John Flaherty, Al Leiter and Ken Singleton previewed the game and provided their thoughts on Tanaka, whom the Yankees signed to a seven-year, $155 million deal two weeks ago.
“His fastball looks like it has a little more movement than I heard it did,” said Flaherty, a former catcher. “It sinks in a bit on right-handed hitters; not enough to call it a sinker, but enough that the hitter will pay attention. He threw a lot of sliders-cutters in this game.
“It looks like he has a lot of confidence in it, and he threw it for strikes when he was behind in the count. That tells me that this is his off-speed pitch that a catcher can call anytime and have confidence that it will be a strike. Kind of a get-me-back-in-the-count pitch.”
Singleton was impressed by Tanaka’s control and Leiter said the 25-year-old can be a “front-end starter once he gets acclimated to the routine of American baseball.”