Idiot or not, Mashiro Tanaka made just two mistakes last night, but why did he shake off Brian McCann? Tanaka thought he had Mike Napoli with the fastball, but Napoli thought differently both figuratively and literally. According to Bryan Hoch/MLB.com Tanaka shook off the splitter first, then the slider second, instead opting for his fastball hard and away. Tanaka paid the price, in a 2-out 1-2 count leaving a 96 MHP heater right over the plate for Napoli took it just over the fence in right field. The neat stat was that 355 foot home run off his bat would only have been a homer at Yankee Stadium, nowhere else.
Most of us caught the “what an idiot“ comment by Napoli after he started in for the dugout. In these nationally televised games, there are extra cameras and better audio everywhere. It just so happened that Fox Sports was able to pick up the comment made by Napoli during the broadcast. Guessing the Yankees aren’t thrilled with the comment, but it’s not worth retaliating over. It wasn’t directed at Tanaka nor meant to have been heard by anyone but his teammates. Take it with a grain of salt and move on.
Tanaka made a poor choice in pitch selection, especially when we got the feeling that the next mistake from either team was going to change the outcome of the game. But McCann defended his pitcher vigorously afterwards. “There is no wrong pitch with Tanaka,” McCann said. “Every pitch he throws is the right pitch. He throws it with conviction, and it was the right pitch. He just barreled it up.” Had Tanaka gone with McCann’s decision, would the outcome been different? Napoli seemed to of thought so. Tanaka had struck out Napoli twice earlier on the splitter, and he honestly thought he was going to see another one. “Nothing against him,” Napoli said to Ken Rosenthal after the game. “I was just surprised he didn’t try to bury another splitter in the dirt.”. Definitely seemed like he wasn’t trying to cause anymore of a stir. He said what he said, end of story.
Tanaka said after via his translator “The sign was for a breaking ball, I just wanted to go hard outside, I wanted to show the batter a fastball there, even if it was not in the strike zone…..It was the worst thing that I could have possibly done. The stadium we have is a rather smaller stadium, so that can happen.”. He realized that he made the mistake, but that doesn’t change the fact that this one errant decision cost the Yankees the game. He’s a guy that is critical of his every performance and pitch, but maybe he should be consciousness next time and listen to his battery mate. McCann has the experience and always calls a great game.
Either way Tanaka pitched another great outing, going the distance in the 2-1 loss. The lack of offense didn’t help, and was really the reason the Yankees lost the game. If anything it’s another learning experience for Tanaka, and hopefully he learned to listen to his catcher in certain situations, but will also continue to pitch the way he’s always pitched. It was Tanaka’s choice and we can’t get on him for it, even McCann stands by him 100 percent. Tanaka has earned the respect of the fans, that is what counts.
