Tanaka threw 82 pitches, of which only six were four-seam fastballs and another 20 were two-seam fastballs, better known as sinkers. The problem with Tanaka’s explanation is that he wasn’t throwing his fastball even before the Blue Jays’ five-run third inning propelled Toronto to a 6-1 victory.
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In the first inning, Tanaka struck out two of the three hitters he faced, and only four of his 14 pitches were fastballs. In the second inning, Tanaka worked around a two-out infield single by Dioner Navarro, which came on an 84 mph slider. In that frame, only six of Tanaka’s 16 pitches were fastballs.
Last year, according to PitchF/x data, Tanaka threw four-seam fastballs or sinkers on 47.6 percent of his pitches. For those two good innings on Monday, he was at 33.3 percent. The big blows against Tanaka were a two-run single by Russell Martin on a 93 mph fastball and a two-run homer by Edwin Encarnacion on a 90 mph sinker. To be fair, the third inning was Tanaka’s heaviest fastball inning, with 10 out of 25 pitches, but that’s still only 40 percent, and came as a result of getting into fastball counts. He was avoiding the fastball all day, not just because it was getting hit.
“It’s not like I’m not going to throw the four-seamer anymore,” said Tanaka, who even on a bad day had six strikeouts. “I’ll use both pitches effectively in situations where I feel the need to throw each pitch.”
The Yankees will worry all season about Tanaka’s elbow holding up after he decided — concurrent with doctors’ advice — to forgo Tommy John surgery. That he sat at 91 with his fastball and 90 with his sinker should not be a concern, as according to PitchF/x, that is exactly what his velocity averaged last year.
To add fuel to the fire of worry over Tanaka’s velocity, the radar gun on the Yankee Stadium scoreboard was turned off in the first inning. Even though it came on after that, Tanaka still was asked about that — and he laughed at the question.
These concerns are overblown, and Tanaka’s velocity on Monday is not a sign of anything regarding his elbow. What should be a concern is that a pitcher who had multiple walks in only five of 20 starts last year, and more than two walks only once, issued two free passes in four innings, and went to three-ball counts on four more batters.
“You know, velocity can be talked about a lot,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “We’ve seen guys throw 95 and get hit really hard. It comes down to location, movement and deception, which he had the first two innings. Third inning, he did not, because he got in bad counts, and that can be a problem.”
That is where the real problem lies for Tanaka. If he is not throwing his fastballs, his other pitches are a splitter that averaged 86 mph on Monday and a slider that averaged 82. Even if he’s not confident in the fastball, he needs to throw it — whether or not he throws it for strikes — to vary the pitch speeds that opposing batters are seeing. That is the deception element, and that is what was lacking for Tanaka on Monday, particularly as the Blue Jays did the bulk of their damage against him the second time through the order.
“I don’t look at today’s results as all bad, at all,” Tanaka said. “If I’m able to make a little bit of adjustments, I should be able to get back into the form that I want to.”
For the Yankees, whose hopes of returning to the playoffs for the first time since 2012 hinge on the health of Tanaka and several players with iffy and aging bodies, that has to be the case, or the opening game of 2015 will be not a blip ruined by one bad inning and an offense that managed only three hits against Drew Hutchison and two relievers, but the harbinger of a doomed summer.