OAKLAND -- The New York Yankees need Masahiro Tanaka not just to come back, but to come back strong, if they are to have any hope of playing more like the team that swept the Kansas City Royals last week and less like the team that had lost 10 of 11 heading into that series -- or like the team that lost, 5-4, to the Oakland Athletics Thursday night.
That means they also need Tanaka to be completely honest with Joe Girardi and his staff when they sit down to discuss his imminent return to the starting rotation, probably Tuesday or Wednesday in Seattle.
The truth is, the weakness of the AL East will probably keep the Yankees in the divisional race all season.
But the weakness of the Yankees' pitching staff, and the gradual tearing down of their bullpen, might also insure that they will finish just close enough to lose, the way they did in Thursday night's series-opening loss.
There's no doubt the Yankees are in a precarious position, on the one hand needing to be cautious with Tanaka knowing that he has the ticking time bomb of a partially torn UCL inside his $155 million right elbow, and on the other hand needing him to come back and pitch for them as soon as he can, and every five days if possible.
Because Thursday night's loss demonstrated three things: That right now, Michael Pineda is the Yankees' only truly reliable starting pitcher; that when the bullpen is short of its three best arms (Andrew Miller, Dellin Betances and Justin Wilson) as it was Thursday, they need a complete game out of the starter to be truly safe, and that Girardi is not about to bend his rules -- even if it means losing a game -- as it did in the opener of his team's four-game series against the woeful A's.
Adhering to his rule of never using any of his relievers three days in a row, Girardi refused to go to Miller, Betances or Wilson when CC Sabathia began to falter in the seventh. In truth, he never should have been allowed out of the dugout to start the inning after surrendering a game-tying two-run home run to Brett Lawrie with two out in the sixth.
But by sending Sabathia out again, Girardi showed his reluctance to use the secondary pieces in his bullpen: David Carpenter, who has been ineffective all season, Chasen Shreve and Esmil Rogers. Instead, he stuck with Sabathia two hitters too long, and as a result was forced to use Carpenter in a situation that practically set him up to fail: two on, none out, tie game. Predictably enough, Carpenter allowed the two inherited runners to score, and that was the difference in the game.
You could pretty much see this one coming, considering Sabathia's history in recent years of rarely being able to hold it together for an entire outing, of nearly always managing to have that one inning where he comes apart just enough to insure his team, and often himself, a loss.
But it is not only Sabathia; as well as the Yankees starters have pitched at times this season, they have averaged just 5 2/3 innings per start. That means plenty of bullpen practically every night, and already, Miller (21 appearances), Betances and Wilson (23 appearances each) have been used in nearly half of the Yankees' 48 games. You can see where that is headed over the long haul.
That is why it is imperative that Tanaka -- who himself averaged 5 2/3 innings in his four starts before getting injured -- had better be ready not just to pitch, but to pitch deep into games. And that means being honest with Girardi when the manager looks him in the eye on Friday and asks how his right arm feels, from shoulder to fingertips.
"I think there’s open communication, but it’s the nature of the game and the competitiveness that helps players be successful that a lot of times they think, 'I’m just a little sore,'" Girardi said. "It’s just part of what players do. I think a player doesn’t really realize it until it really starts to affect their performance. Tanaka’s probably no different than most players. It’s just, us trying to decipher and look for signs."
Just last week, Chase Whitley admitted that he had been pitching with pain in his elbow for several starts before his UCL finally tore through and he wound up having Tommy John surgery. The odds are that Tanaka will insist everything is fine, and the Yankees will insert him back into their rotation next week, even though he has not pitched in a real game since April 23, and only made two rehab starts, the longer of which went just 62 pitches.
They don't really know if Tanaka is OK, but they desperately need him to be, and so will be more than willing to believe whatever the pitcher tells them. Still, he will not be allowed to throw more than 90 pitches, which means that once again, the bullpen, already overworked through the first quarter of the season, is probably in for a busy night once again.
“"Guys have got to get it done," a frustrated Girardi said after Thursday night's loss. "That'’s what we'’re asking them to do, and sometimes it'’s going to be like that. That’'s part of the game. We just weren’'t able to do it tonight.”"
Unless the starters start giving the Yankees more length, there are going to be more nights like Thursday as the season grinds on. And unless Tanaka is truly ready to go -- not just to pitch, but to pitch the way he did up until July 8 of last year, when he suffered his UCL tear -- then he, too, will be a party to the injustice being perpetrated on the bullpen by the Yankees starters: Turning what had been this team's greatest strength ultimately into just one more liability.
