Tanaka and the Yankees are in trouble.
‘Over-reacting’, by definition, is driven solely by a reaction to an event. What happens when the event in question is not necessarily surprising? In that regard, it is more of a confirmation of a hypothesis than a snap judgement made in a vacuum.
The Yankees entered 2015 with question marks throughout the clubhouse – Will Alex Rodriguez contribute? Will Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda stay healthy? Who’s on first? With a few games played came a few answers, but none are truly inspiring for the Yankee fan.
Outside a three-run inning in which the Blue Jays gift-wrapped a bundle of runs, the Yankees’ offense has looked utterly inept. On a night when a knuckle-ball pitcher constantly fell behind in counts and seemed to never fully be in sync with his catcher, the Yankees still could do little to push a runner across the plate. Instead, Jacoby Ellsbury is getting picked off first base by a right-handed pitcher and Didi Gregorius is stumbling out of the batter’s box in an effort to hit into a double play.
Worse than the improbable win against the Blue Jays in the aforementioned turn of events is the state of Yankees’ ace Masahiro Tanaka. Possibly the only pitcher in the past two years to be diagnosed with any tear in the UCL yet not receive the dreaded Tommy John surgery, Tanaka looked miles away from his formerly dominant self.
Just because a judgement is made quickly does not mean it is without basis. The only legitimate takeaway from the first week of the Major League Baseball season might be the affirmation that the ‘best-case scenario’ for the Yankees is far from a realization.
In this case, it would be an ‘over-reaction’ not to react.
