Bronx, N.Y., July 23, 2015; Yankees 9, Orioles 3 — Breaking out from a string of tightly played contests, the Yankees swept the visiting Orioles Thursday afternoon by scoring in four of the five first innings, bashing their way to a 9-1 lead. Chase Headley reached Ubaldo Jimenez for a three-run double in the first, and Jacoby Ellsbury homered for his first of four rbi’s in the second.

This was no typical Yankee game, at least not for this team, which has gone 4-1 coming out of the All Star break, all one-run games. The day was perfect, with a blue sky speckled with puffy white clouds, low 80s temps, and a bright sun. And everything went the Yankees’ way. Ellsbury would later get himself a two-run double when left fielder David Lough attempted and failed on a shoestring catch, and Mark Teixeira deftly reached into the Yankee dugout to snare a foul pop right after Masahiro Tanaka grabbed a Lough liner back at the box. And John Ryan Murphy collected three hits, mostly because he bounced balls directly off the third and then second base bags, respectively, in the first and fifth innings.

So, aside from the fact that the team continues to play well at home, and that they lead major league baseball in first-inning runs, the best thing wasn’t the loud offense; it was the professional outing by Masahiro Tanaka on the mound. Consistency is a good thing in a starting pitcher, but the hard-throwing righty took it to a new level. Not only is 77 of 101 on-target pitches a better than 3-to-1 strikes to balls ratio; after four innings, it had been 4-to-1, at 38-7. He threw 22 of 28 first pitches for strikes, and got the Orioles to swing and miss 19 times.

Tanaka got himself into, and almost through, the eighth inning because he turned in one low-pitch-count frame after another. Through six innings, he had posted counts of 12, 11, 11, 13, 13, and 14. He struck out two in the fourth, and his inning pitch count did not climb to 16 until the seventh, when he struck out three straight. Masahiro did not walk a batter, and went to a three-ball count just twice. He allowed just four hits, three of them home runs, but two of those came in the eighth inning.

The AL wisdom has morphed more than once this season, as the Yanks were first expected to struggle, carrying aging players like Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira. Then, with these two largely carrying the team, along with catcher Brian McCann, with power and rbi’s, the AL East was deemed to be a place where every team, perhaps except for Boston, would battle it out all season, with no team making a move to run away with it. But now, the Yanks have sent Baltimore seven back, and Toronto and Tampa hover at 5.5 and 6.5, with the Red Sox bringing up the rear. At 12 games over .500, the Yanks have hit a high-water mark.

Still, they have not played as well on the road, and a 10-game trip that begins in Minnesota against the surprising Twins could go a long way toward determining how well this team’s first-place position holds going forward. They cannot count on scoring early because the opposing center fielder played too shallow, as Adam Jones did today. Liners to the box may go through, and foul pops toward first may carry over the dugout. Outfielders aren’t likely to miss on shoestring catches against them, and I can almost guarantee that ground balls struck by Murphy will not be glancing off bases for hits.

What does seem clear is that the back of their bullpen will bring home wins when handed leads, and that the team will show resilience when they fall behind. Michael Pineda is likely to give them a chance against ex-Yank Phil Hughes in Target Field tomorrow, and we’ll see if CC Sabathia, Nate Eovaldi, and Ivan Nova can build on recent solid starts. Will the team add a bat before July 31? Or trade away a piece and add reinforcements from AAA?

But if the team can feature a rotation anywhere near as solid as the arms with which they typically end games, lengthy losing streaks should not occur. “Ma Kun” is an honorific bestowed upon Tanaka back in Japan. He earned it not only for pitching better than most, but for doing so consistently. Tanaka is one of the foundations on which this team needs to rely. And they should be fine going forward, assuming one in roughly five starts is made by,

Masterful Ma Kun

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!