Masahiro Tanaka diagnoses his early-game troubles

The only flaw Masahiro Tanaka has displayed in the first two starts is shakiness in the early innings. After the second frame he morphs into a very different hurler.

“If you look at the first two starts in the beginning I am missing my spots and giving up runs,’’ Tanaka said through an interpreter. “I need to make adjustments and not try and do that. Try to keep the damage to a minimum or no damage at all.’’

Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, Tanaka will make his third start, against the morbid Cubs, who after a dozen games were already six lengths off the pace in the NL Central heading into Monday’s action, and enter the game with a team .667 OPS, which ranked 25th of 30 major league teams as of Monday.

Two starts is a very small sample for a pitcher who is expected to post 30 to 32. Yet, two is all there is to work with, and the difference between the opening two frames and the five that follow is alarming.

In a combined four innings against the Blue Jays and Orioles in the opening two innings, Tanaka gave up six earned runs and hitters have gone 7-for-17 (.412) with two homers.

Against the same lineups from the third through seventh innings, batters are 5-for-34 (.147) and haven’t scored a run.

Pitchers are constantly making adjustments, and certainly Tanaka has adjusted so much since arriving in America after signing a seven-year deal for $155 million. So, it’s not a surprise that whatever he does after the first two innings is working.

“It has a lot to do with the mental part along with the physical part of my pitching mechanics,’’ said Tanaka, who is 1-0 with a 3.23 ERA and has fanned 18 compared to one walk in 14 innings.

“That’s what you hope, that he settles down right away,’’ manager Joe Girardi said. “He seems to get into a pretty good rhythm, which is important.’’

Very little has been routine for the 25-year-old Tanaka since becoming a Yankee, and the Cubs are no different.
Unlike other NL clubs, the strike-throwing right-hander didn’t see the Cubs in spring training because they work in Arizona.


Alfonso Soriano remembers the first two years as a Cub as enjoyable. Yet, after 2007 and 2008, when the Cubs made the playoffs, the joy evaporated because of the losing, and his trying to teach young players how to win while the team couldn’t.

“The first couple of years were good. After that, not good, not fun,’’ said Soriano, who was a Cub from 2007 to the middle of 2013, when he was dealt to the Yankees. “It was tough. There were a lot of young guys not on the same page, as they were trying to learn to play in the big leaguesI wanted to win but my job was to teach them how to play the game and how to win and be a good player.’’

Soriano remembers Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams doing that for him. However, when Soriano spoke to Starlin Castro, Wellington Castillo, Darwin Barney and Anthony Rizzo, his message didn’t carry the weight of what he heard from Jeter, Rivera and Williams because the results on the field were vastly different.

“We were losing, I was trying to teach those young guys that baseball is fun when you are winning,’’ Soriano said of his time with the Cubs. During his first three years, the club had winning records and two NL Central titles but not a winning season after 2009.

“It’s not fun coming to the ballpark every day and not think about winning,’’ he said.


Carlos Beltran was named AL Player of the Week Monday. In seven games last week the switch-hitter batted .423 (11-for-26) with three homers, six RBIs and a .923 slugging percentage. It’s the fourth time Beltran has copped AL Player of the Week honors and 10th overall.