TAMPA —  Assigned to catch Masahiro Tanaka in the pitchers’ first live batting practice session Friday, Brian McCann left the 25-pitch session believing the hype is well deserved for the Yankees’ $175 million investment.
“He is as good as advertised,’’ McCann said. “You can tell he has the stuff.’’
To the naked eye without the benefit of television it’s hard to tell one pitcher from another when they are throwing to batters who rarely swing. Yet, to the professionals it’s easy to tell. Especially when Tanaka throws his signature pitch: The split fingered fastball.
“It falls off the table,’’ McCann said of Tanaka’s out pitch following a session at George M. Steinbrenner Field. “The motion is the same as the fastball and that’s the key to getting swings and misses. You look for motion as a hitter and it’s the same release point. It looks like a fastball all the way in and it drops pretty good.”
That’s the same reaction Austin Romine had from the batters’ box.
“I was tracking it in and I didn’t know what it was halfway in. From a hitting standpoint it’s something special,’’ Romine said.
Ivan Nova, Hiroki Kuroda and CC Sabathia followed Tanaka, but the Japanese righty created the loudest buzz.
GM Brian Cashman watched from behind the cage and several Yankee scouts, who are in town for meetings, came down to the field to look at Tanaka and went back to work when he was done.