I Have Tanaka Fever And I Don't Care Who Knows
NY Times - Masahiro Tanaka’s latest gem, on Tuesday against the Toronto Blue Jays, materialized a little differently from most of his other performances. It seemed to develop slowly, like a mosaic. It was not until the later innings that the full form of his mastery took shape. He has certainly pitched longer, and he has probably pitched better, but there is no point in parsing out degrees of dominance anymore. His 14 starts for the Yankees have all looked similar enough. He has won 11 of them. After leading the Yankees past the Blue Jays, 3-1, Tanaka, the 25-year-old Japanese ace, holds the best record in the majors (11-1). He matched Steve Rogers in 1973 in starting a career with 14 quality starts. And with three weeks until the All-Star break, Tanaka’s first half can probably rest safely with some of the finest rookie debuts in any generation.
How about this fucking guy? I don’t want to over sell it but I am legitimately becoming obsessed with him. I want to know everything he does to be so great. I don’t know if this makes me gay or just puts me on the waiting list, but I am fine with it either way.
Over the past few days I have been getting emails and tweets saying “He can’t keep this up!” and “Wait until they see him a second time!” and all of that stupid shit. Hell, even White Sox Dave told me about a career .250 hitter who is dying to see him again because Tanka is going to get lit up. Well I hate to break it to everyone but Tanaka is LEGIT. Yeah, he is coming to a better league from Japan but the guy was undefeated last year there. He came here because he wants to be the best, and he’s only going to get better.
The same way everyone will get to see him more than once, he will be able to get a better feel for the hitters, his catcher and even the American ball. He has the best splitter in the game, its virtually unhittable. Couple that with a plus fastball and slider and he’s unstoppable. On top of all that, he is the most competitive player on the field on any given day. On the rare occasion he’s in a jam, he finds that double play or weak pop up he needs. But thats only when he’s not striking out the side. Calling him the Rookie of the Year at this point is an insult. He’s well above that. Well beyond that. At this point its just a question of if he’ll get enough votes for MVP on top of his Cy Young.
PS: Billy’s is the spot before tonight’s game and Saturday the Stoolies will be at Stan’s before and after the game.
PPS: I know we need a Tanaka shirt and are working on it. Feel free to send any ideas in. Email nyctips@barstoolsports.com