diagnosed with an inflamed rotator cuff<\/a>, the staff ace was a slam dunk to face the Orioles in the opener. Tanaka was likely the second-game starter with James Paxton and J.A. Happ in the mix for the No. 3 and No. 4.<\/p>\nSeverino, however, will start the season on the injured list and there is no set date when he will be able to pitch in a big league game. That will be determined by how his shoulder progresses once he is allowed to resume throwing.<\/p>\n
Should Boone announce Tanaka as the choice, it would mark the 30-year-old\u2019s fourth Opening Day assignment as a Yankee and that counts. Severino started against the Blue Jays in Toronto last year and posted a 6-1 victory.<\/p>\n
In addition to pitching three Opening Day games, Tanaka has started five postseason games for the Yankees and is 3-2 with a 1.50 ERA. That experience can\u2019t hurt when it comes to the big-game atmosphere of Opening Day that quickly vanishes after the final out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got some experience going through the playoffs, so if that situation would arise hopefully go out there and give a good performance,\u2019\u2019 Tanaka said.<\/p>\n
Which led to a question about Tanaka\u2019s Opening Day experiences and working well in the postseason would give him an advantage over Happ and Paxson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess that could play into that a little bit,\u2019\u2019 Boone said. \u201cI feel good handing him the ball in that situation. Masa has clearly shown that he is really good in the big spot. Certainly in an Opening Day situation he won\u2019t flinch at it and he would be prepared.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Tanaka was 12-6 with a 3.75 ERA in 27 starts last season and is 64-34 with a 3.59 ERA in 132 starts in the majors \u2014 all as a Yankee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like where he is at and where he came in,\u2019\u2019 Boone said. \u201cHe was physically really good coming in. I think he has had a good camp so far.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
In Tanaka\u2019s only previous spring outing, he worked three scoreless innings, allowed a hit, struck out two and didn\u2019t issue a walk to the Tigers on March 3.<\/p>\n
After introducing a knuckle curveball toward the end of last season, Tanaka used it in his first outing. He said he believes it will help him the more familiar he gets with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot the knuckle curve, but the previous curveball I wasn\u2019t able to control it the way I wanted to,\u2019\u2019 said Tanaka, who wasn\u2019t impressed with his slider or signature split-finger fastball. \u201cI wanted something that was more controllable. So far it is working good.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] TAMPA \u2014 If life is 6 \u00bd against, then Masahiro Tanaka is an even-money favorite to be Aaron Boone\u2019s Opening Day pitcher on March 28 at Yankee Stadium against the putrid Orioles. Following a 6-5 exhibition loss to the Tigers on Friday night at George M. Steinbrenner Field, Boone wasn\u2019t ready to identify Tanaka …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tie-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hameed.nwar.uk\/sa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Masahiro](\"https:\/\/thenypost.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/03\/masahiro-tanaka-2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&strip=all\")
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