CC Sabathia was discussing the state of the Yankees’ rotation before Tuesday’s 3-1 win over Toronto when he briefly mentioned Masahiro Tanaka, who was about to take the mound.
“Obviously, Tanaka is the best pitcher on the planet,” Sabathia said with a laugh.
It might not be that funny.
The Yankees have remained in the thick of the AL East race for two main reasons and both were on display Tuesday.
First, Toronto is hardly a powerhouse, so the division remains up for grabs.
The other reason is Tanaka.
Despite not being particularly crisp, Tanaka still whiffed 10 Blue Jays in six innings and, after Jose Reyes’ homer to lead off the game, was excellent again and made Brett Gardner’s third-inning, two-run home run stand up.
He improved to 11-1 and the Yankees are 12-2 in his 14 starts this season — as opposed to 24-31 when someone else takes the mound.
As usual, he wasn’t pleased with his performance.
“Overall, I felt my stuff wasn’t really there,” Tanaka said through a translator. “All I tried to do is hang in there and keep the ball down as much as possible. … I feel I was not able to make my pitches, not able to hit the spots.”
So he left it to others to sing his praises.
“He’s tough on himself,” Brian McCann said. “He can attack you in many different ways and can do whatever he wants with the baseball.”
For the second straight time against Toronto, Tanaka gave up a leadoff homer, this one to Reyes on a ball he left up over the plate.
“The leadoff homer probably hurt them more than it helped them,” Gardner said. “It just made him mad, really. When he gets mad, he really battles.”
Tanaka said it was the first time he could remember giving up a homer on the first pitch of a game and that it threw him off his rhythm. McCann didn’t notice.
“He settles down and composes himself as well as anybody,” the catcher said. “They made him work. He had to pitch max effort when a game is close like that against that lineup. He put guys away when he needed to and he’s been doing that since day one.”
That’s why the Yankees are 36-33 and pulled within 3½ games of first-place Toronto (41-31) as they opened a six-game homestand.
“I don’t think it’s fair to expect from anyone,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of Tanaka’s 11-1 start and 1.99 ERA. “I don’t care what your stuff is. I don’t care if you throw 110 [mph].”
At 76 pitches through four innings, it was unclear how long Tanaka would last, but he came back to strike out the side in the fifth and pitch around a two-out double in the sixth.
Gardner provided all the offense Tanaka needed when he lined a 2-1 pitch off the netting on the right-field foul pole with one out in the third following Kelly Johnson’s double.
“All you need to do is give him a couple of runs and he’ll get the win and that’s what happened tonight,” said Gardner, who wasn’t sure his ball would stay fair and admitted “hitting home runs isn’t my game.”
The Yankees, though, will take it.
Mark Teixeira’s single in the fifth knocked in Derek Jeter and gave the Yankees an extra run, and Dellin Betances and David Robertson pitched three shutout innings to finish it, combining for five more strikeouts.
“You want to make up as much ground as you can,” Girardi said of facing the Blue Jays. “So this was a good way to start.’’