NEW YORK — Masahiro Tanaka threw again without difficulty, doing so for the second time in as many days. This time, he spent some time explaining everything as best he could about his rehab process.
Speaking for about eight minutes at his locker before Friday’s 5-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles to a group of about 15 reporters, Tanaka answered 16 questions during his first group interview since April 28, when the Yankees announced he was headed to the disabled list with right wrist tendinitis and a strained right forearm.
“I’m definitely going in the right direction,” Tanaka said through his interpreter. “It feels good so that’s basically why I’m going step by step.”
Among the key things Yankee fans want to know are: Tanaka made 50 throws, 25 apiece from 60 and 90 feet and that more importantly is the right-hander reported no pain while doing so.
Tanaka’s latest throwing session seemed to represent an incremental step forward. He spent half his session increasing the distance of throws from Thursday, when he made all 50 of his throws at 60 feet.
The next step will be throwing on flat ground before Sunday’s game and if there are no difficulties, a bullpen session will follow. It is in the bullpen session where pitchers typically work on pitches and something to watch for Tanaka is how the splitter looks in those sessions.
Pitching coach Larry Rothchild and Joe Girardi have speculated the wrist injury is derived from how Tanaka has thrown splitters in bullpen sessions but several times he has said he believes that is unrelated.
“Not really,” Tanaka said. “Just because I always throw that way and that was the way I was throwing those bullpens as well but I do understand our guys would say something like that because there’s always a possibility of something like that. As far as for me, that bullpen I was just throwing the splitter as I would always usually throw the splitter.”
And of course there is the elephant in the room, the partially torn ligament in the right elbow might need Tommy John surgery at some point. Tanaka held off on the surgery when he got the initial diagnosis last July in Cleveland and so far, Tanaka and the Yankees have not expressed any pain in the elbow.