About Last Night: Masahiro Tanaka

As Brad said in his recap of last night’s game, Masahiro Tanaka‘s first two starts were not great. Tanaka needed to have a good performance against the Rays in Tampa, 1) to quiet the whispers abut his elbow, and 2) to keep the Yankees on a bit of a roll.

Thankfully, he succeeded. He looked like the Tanaka of the first half of 2014, seemingly having no issues with the Rays’ lineup whatsoever. He lasted seven innings, gave up only two hits, didn’t walk a batter and struck out eight. He also lowered his season ERA from 7.00 to 3.94 with last night’s outing.

According to Brooks Baseball PITCH f/x, Tanaka favorited his four seam fastball – throwing 28 of them. He also reached nearly 94 m.p.h.…