NEW YORK — The discussion about right-hander Masahiro Tanaka’s velocity or lack of it has not cooled.
It was a hot topic during spring training, especially toward the end when Tanaka conceded he might not throw as hard as last year.
The conversation continued before Tuesday’s game with the Toronto Blue Jays due in part to a report in the New York Daily News that the Yankees thought something was “lost in translation” when Tanaka commented about his lack of velocity in Monday’s four-inning start.
Asked about that concept before the game, manager Joe Girardi tried his best to downplay it after he said that he spoke with Tanaka.
“I think what he was meaning to say is I’m not a flamethrower,” Girardi said. “That’s not how I pitch. I am going to pitch different than some of the guys who throw hard.”
On Monday, 26 of the 82 pitches Tanaka threw were fastballs. On Wednesday, Girardi said throwing less four-seam fastballs were not in correlation to any elbow concerns.
“From my conversations with him, it’s a strategic thing,” said Girardi, whose Yankees defeated the Blue Jays 4-3 Wednesday. “He knows that his four-seamer got hit some last year, and that really comes down to location. I think the important thing for him is that, whichever one he’s locating better, it’s the one he uses that day for the most part. He is a guy that gets 90 percent of his outs on sliders and splits. The fastball is to kind of set up the slider and the split. He needs to locate. I mean, he got in bad counts the other day. He didn’t really pitch Toronto much different than he did the last time he beat them in June, but he made mistakes and that was the difference.”
Tanaka’s next start will be Sunday against the Boston Red Sox but it seems likely velocity will be a key talking point all season and one that could agitate Girardi even more such as it did before Monday, when he gave a testy answer to a question by the YES Network by saying: “Let’s see what happens, OK.”