Monday, April 7, 2014

Tanaka Shines in MLB Debut

 Masahiro Tanaka’s first SFF in big league: a hanging splitter to Melky Cabrera



138 km/h split-finger fastball

Not exactly what Tanaka had in mind to begin his MLB career; nevertheless, after two shaky innings, Tanaka settled in and delivered a strong bounce-back performance.  

Once Tanaka gets into his groove with his filthy arsenal, the opponents definitely have their hands full facing the newest New York Yankee from Japan. Tanaka managed to bait Blue Jays’ hitters into chasing pitches out of the zone 35.3% of the time and came up with an eye-popping 60% splitter Whiff/Swing rate in his major league debut. I admit I am getting ahead of myself here, but the following whiffs make Tanaka looks awfully good with his splitters:











Tanaka also showed off an effective tight-slider as his secondary pitch:



A very good cut fastball was occasionally flashed :



In a nutshell, it is highly probable we are witnessing an emerging front-end American League pitcher in the making.

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