And you were worried about the Yankees in general because of a senses-numbing, 1-4 start and Masahiro Tanaka in particular because of his initial awful effort.
In what manager Joe Girardi labeled a “really important” game, the Yankees received an effective, although unspectacular, start from Tanaka whose radar-gun numbers became nearly moot for one night as he received a seven-spot in the first inning. So with enough pitching and an awakened 16-hit, 3-homer offense, the Yankees beat Boston, 14-4, Sunday at Yankee Stadium on national TV, ending a season-opening homestand at 2-4.
“Overall, it’s good to see us hit the way we did, one through nine,” said Alex Rodriguez who launched a three-run double in that first inning — immediately before Chase Headley and Stephen Drew belted back-to-back homers. “That’s exactly what you want to see out of our offense. When you have talent the way we do in this clubhouse the big thing is to master fundamentals. We’ll get there.”
The Yankees need Tanaka to get there, too. Spotted that seven-run lead, he was good enough, but far from what the Yankees — and he — expect.
“Especially for the splitter, I don’t think there was much good movement on it tonight. Just didn’t get them to swing and I was in bad counts,” Tanaka said. “Particularly my splitter wasn’t sharp.”
Tanaka, the first Yankees starter to know what a lead feels like this season, lasted five innings and 97 pitches — 38 of them in a troublesome fourth inning when the Red Sox, aided by a Drew error, slapped him for three runs. But with manager Joe Girardi about to apply an early hook, Tanaka escaped by striking on Ryan Hanigan and Mookie Betts with some nasty sliders.
“It was really good I was able to come out of that inning with those two strikeouts,” said Tanaka (1-1), who gave up four hits, three walks and three unearned runs. “Hanigan, I was actually looking for a strikeout. I was throwing to get a strikeout. For Betts, I was able to get in a favorable count and was lucky to get that last strikeout.”
And that kept him around for another inning. So the reviews were better than his first start, a four-inning losing effort to Toronto when the question of velocity became the topic of the day, week and fortnight around the Yankees. Sunday, he hit 93 mph once.
“It’s interesting, I thought he was better with his fastball tonight,” Girardi said. “But he didn’t throw as many strikes with his off-speed [pitches] as he did. It was opposite. Next step is we put both of them together, and then we’ll have Tanaka.”
Hey, score 14 runs, bang out 16 hits and you can pitch Professor Tanaka, the wrestler.
“He had some good movement early on. He threw the ball well. I know everybody is looking at velocity but he threw really well, kept the ball down,” said catcher Brian McCann, who closed out the scoring with a solo homer in the eighth, the 200th of his career (yup, he got the ball).
But as Tanaka said, the splitter wasn’t really good.
“That’s one of the first times guys were laying off consecutive splits,” McCann said.
The game was over for all intents early. The seven-run uprising, which represented more runs than they had scored in any game to date, was aided by a Mike Napoli error at first and was the beginning of a dismal night for Boston starter Clay Buchholz (1-1).
After Boston closed to 7-3, the Yankees responded with three in their half of the fourth inning with a two-run single by Brett Gardner and a sac fly by Mark Teixeira. The Yankees added three more in the sixth on Rodriguez’s RBI walk, an RBI hit by Headley and Drew’s sac fly. Hanley Ramirez added a solo homer off Tanaka (1-1) in the fifth.
Girardi stuck to his importance-of-the-game theme afterward.
“It was important for our guys,” he said. “We’ve scored three or four runs, but it was nice to get a lead. We haven’t led too often this year. Just to take advantage of an error in the first inning and put up a seven-spot.”
All those hits help. So did Tanaka, even when he was not great but good enough.
