CLEVELAND — Self-loathing Yankees fans can now include Masahiro Tanaka in their endless rants about what is wrong with the club.
While Tanaka and a sensational bullpen have kept the Yankees afloat in the AL East across three-plus months, he has lost three of his last four outings and panic is smothering the Yankees’ universe.
Tuesday night at Progressive Field the Indians hung a 5-3 defeat on the Yankees’ ace in front of 23,384 and started an avalanche of questions and thoughts after he gave up five runs and 10 hits in 6²/₃ innings and dropped to 12-4. The 10 hits and five earned runs were season highs for the rookie right-hander, who now has given up 15 homers.
“Is he hurt?” “How could they spend that kind of money on him?” “He is spent!” “He threw too many pitches!” “I told you this guy wasn’t that good!” “Trade him for David Price!” “Send him to Triple-A!”
So it goes from Yankee fans who invented the “What Have You Done For Me Lately?’’ mentality long before social media.
“If he gives up any runs it’s a big deal. He is human,’’ catcher Brian McCann said of Tanaka, who was hurt by a hanging slider to Nick Swisher. The former Yankee hit it for a two-run homer in the sixth and Michael Brantley drilled a fastball in the middle of the plate an inning later with the bases empty. “They worked the count and got big hits when they needed them.’’
The loss dropped the Yankees four games behind the AL-East leading Orioles, who were rained out Tuesday.
Tanaka will start once more before the All-Star break, Sunday in Baltimore, and is 1-3 with a 4.25 ERA in his past four starts.
So, did working the second straight game on four days’ rest have an effect on Tanaka, who worked every seventh day in Japan?
“I didn’t feel that bad on the mound tonight,’’ Tanaka said through an interpreter. “I did feel my fastball was better than the last time.’’
Tanaka, who faced the Indians for the first time, blamed the subpar performance on an inability to locate.
“I think a lot of it had to do with command of my pitches,’’ he said. “I feel a lot of my pitches were right down the middle and pretty easy for the batters to hit.’’
Swisher might be experiencing a season the former Yankee will want to delete, but Monday and Tuesday have been just fine. Swisher homered Monday night off David Huff in a 5-3 Yankees win and Tuesday night his two-run blast to right-center in the sixth inning put the Indians ahead, 4-3.
Swisher started the night hitting .198 with six homers and 30 RBIs.
“It’s the first time you ever see him, so the first couple times you are feeling him out and seeing what he’s got,” Swisher said. “In that situation right there, he loves that split-slider, he got in that two-strike count and he had been burying that split all day long, and for me, I was just lucky enough for him to hang that slider.”
The Yankees scored twice in the first and a run in the second off right-hander Trevor Bauer, but after stranding two in the third, the only base runner the Yankees got the rest of the way was Jacoby Ellsbury who reached on Swisher’s fielding error in the fifth.
So, self-loathers, have at it. You have another reason to hate the team you love and it’s the same guy who has saved the Yankees’ season.
Additional reporting by Kevin Kernan