Masahiro Tanaka could be making final start as Yankee in Wednesday’s playoff game

Masahiro Tanaka is on the brink of entering free agency for the first time in seven years. The stress and nervous excitement that accompany a potential career shift will have to be put on standby. He has to get through a playoff run first.

Tanaka could be making his final start in pinstripes when he takes the mound against the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday at Progressive Field for Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series. The right-hander will try to help the Yankees clinch the best-of-three series.

“As a unit, we have a goal that we need to reach so my focus and my intentions are all there to win these playoff games,” Tanaka said through a team interpreter.

But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about free agency.

Exactly one week ago, Tanaka allowed himself to mull over his time in the Bronx before his final regular season start against the Blue Jays in Buffalo.

Masahiro Tanaka could be making his final start of his Yankee career on Wednesday night. (Frank Franklin II/AP)

“In Buffalo … the thought that this could be my last regular season game as a New York Yankee, that crossed my mind,” Tanaka said. “I just thought to myself, it’s been seven years — it’s been a quick seven years. It’s kind of an end to a chapter in a way.”

The 31-year-old’s Yankees odyssey might be the best chapter in his book.

Tanaka signed a seven-year, $155 million deal with the Yankees as a 25-year-old back in January 2014. At the time, Yankees GM Brian Cashman drew up the largest ever open-market deal for a right-handed free agent pitcher. The contract that year trailed only CC Sabathia’s $161 million deal for the largest free-agent contract ever signed by a pitcher. (Gerrit Cole is somewhere reflecting about this and blushing.)

Since then, Tanaka has posted a 78-46 record with a career 3.74 ERA, accompanied by a 1.130 WHIP and 991 strikeouts over 173 regular season starts and 1,054.1 innings. He’s pitched seven complete games and four shutouts in that span, and plenty of starting rotations will be looking to add an established veteran like Tanaka to the mix.

The Mets, for example, have multiple rotation holes and are looking to add any starter, period. Perhaps one of Steve Cohen’s first moves could include snatching Tanaka from the Yankees. Earlier this month, Cohen signed an agreement to purchase the Mets at a reported record-breaking $2.4 billion valuation.

Tanaka shines in October. His playoff pedigree is very much a part of his dominance in pinstripes.

The Game 2 starter enters Wednesday with a career 1.76 postseason ERA in 46 innings and eight starts from 2015 and 2017-19. The Yankees went 5-3 in his playoff starts. Tanaka, though, has yet to pitch in the World Series. He’ll try to get his Yankees there, starting with a pressure-packed wild card game.

“I may be repeating myself, but I think the most important thing about pitching in a game like this is really trying to be yourself,” Tanaka said of what makes him so successful in higher stakes. “I think just being yourself is the key to being successful in pitching in big games.”

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