Yanks need Tanaka to pitch like an ace in G3

Before there was Gerrit Cole with the Yankees, there was Masahiro Tanaka.

Before there was Gerrit Cole with the Yankees, there was Masahiro Tanaka.

The Yankees signed Tanaka to a seven-year contract worth $155 million before the 2014 season. The money felt as big then as Cole’s ($325 million, nine years) does now. Tanaka was going to be their ace, the way Cole is their ace now. And now it is the seventh year out of seven for Tanaka, against the Rays in Game 3 on Wednesday night in San Diego. He gets the ball in a game every bit as important as Cole’s Game 1 the other night.

Game Date Time Matchup/Result TV/Highlights Gm 1 Oct. 5 NYY 9, TB 3 Watch Gm 2 Oct. 6 TB 7, NYY 5 Watch Gm 3 Oct. 7 7 p.m. TB @ NYY TBS Gm 4 Oct. 8 7 p.m. TB @ NYY TBS *Gm 5 Oct. 9 7 p.m. NYY @ TB TBS

The Yankees see what is happening on the other side of the American League draw. The Astros are 4-0 so far in this postseason, even without Justin Verlander, but now their ace, Zack Greinke, is complaining of soreness in his pitching arm. The A’s haven’t looked like much. But the Yankees have to get past the Rays, who have now beaten them nine out of 12 times this season. They can set themselves up to do that by winning Game 3. If they don’t, they then play for their season on Thursday night, probably with Aaron Boone giving the ball to Jordan Montgomery — 2-3 in 10 starts this season with a 5.11 earned run average after losing most of last season to Tommy John surgery.

Maybe Giancarlo Stanton and his teammates are going to just keep hitting home runs and the Yankees can slug their way past the Rays. Hard to do at this time of year. “Home runs or bust” didn’t work out so great in Game 2, when the Yankees struck out 18 times while Stanton was hitting two more. The Yankees need to pitch, starting with Tanaka. He has pitched a lot of big games for them after he left the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles in Nippon Professional Baseball’s Pacific League. None feels bigger than Game 3 against the Rays.

The Yankees decided to hold Tanaka back for Game 3, starting the 21-year old Deivi Garcia in Game 2. Then they got cute and turned Garcia into an opener and followed the right-handed Garcia in the second inning with left-hander J.A. Happ, perhaps hoping that would make Rays manager Kevin Cash go weak at the knees because of all the lefty hitters he had in his batting order to face Garcia. You saw how that worked out for the Yankees, after Garcia gave up a first-inning home run to Randy Arazorena (think of him as the Rays’ Stanton these days). Happ gave up five hits and four runs and three walks in 2 2/3 innings. He gave up two home runs. The Yankees ended up losing, 7-5. Just like that, a best-of-five series became best-of-three.

Tanaka, by the way, said he wasn’t surprised that Boone held him back and gave it to Garcia, then Happ, in Game 2. Even though it wasn’t so long ago that Tanaka was the Game 1 guy for the Yankees.

“I wasn’t overly surprised when they told me I was going to go in Game 3, just because I didn’t really care about where I was pitching,’’ Tanaka said. “I can’t go into the details of why we are doing this, but I have prepared myself to pitch in Game 3.’’

As long as it seems he has been around Yankee Stadium, Tanaka doesn’t turn 32 for a few more weeks. But he has been a much better big-game pitcher for the Yankees than you think. So far there have been nine postseason starts for him, beginning when Dallas Keuchel shut out the Yankees and outpitched Tanaka in the American League Wild Card game of 2015.

In those postseason games, Tanaka has a 5-3 record with a 2.70 ERA. He won a game when the Yankees were coming back from 0-2 down against the Indians in the Division Series of 2017. He was 1-1 against the Astros in the AL Championship Series of ‘17, with an ERA of 1.38. He was the winning pitcher in the only game the Yankees got off the Red Sox in the ’18 ALDS. He was 1-1 in last year’s ALCS against the Astros, with a 2.45 ERA.

In comparison, Cole has a 8-4 record in his 12 postseason starts so far, with an ERA of 2.75. Cole is going to be around forever with the Yankees, signed up for eight more years. Again: This is Year 7 out of seven for Tanaka. He got roughed up last week in Game 2 of the Yankees-Indians Wild Card Series, but it was a night when, because of rain, he had to start and stop, and finally left the game after four innings and five hits and six runs.

Now, he gets the Rays after an extra day of rest — a Game 3 that will have a Game 5 feel to it, because there are always games that feel like that in a short series. The Yankee ace before Gerrit Cole was their ace is asked to pitch like one in San Diego.

Mike Lupica is a columnist for MLB.com.