April 9, 2014, Bronx, N.Y. — Yankee Stadium got its long-anticipated look at Masahiro Tanaka Wednesday evening and, despite an early bump in the road, the show was worth the ticket price, and more. Baltimore’s Jonathan Schoop turned on a 1-0 pitch with two on in the second inning, scoring three runs early against Masahiro, just as the Jays did in Toronto last week.

The Yanks had an early lead in that game, and retook it quickly, something tonight’s squad was unable to do. Carlos Beltran and Kelly Johnson homers in the bottom of the second made it close right away, and a leadoff Beltran double in the fourth eventually tied the game. But the home team failed to capitalize on two singles in the fifth, Beltran’s leadoff single one frame later, or even after Brett Gardner took a 3-2 pitch into the right field corner for two bases leading off the eighth.

Tanaka was gone from the game by then. He worked seven innings, not a given once it took him 58 throws to navigate the first three frames. He had posted six strike outs by then, all of them swinging, and would add two apiece in the fifth and the seventh, whiffing Delmon Young with his 101st and last pitch of the night. Using a variety of fastballs, his split-finger, and slider, he threw 71 of the 101 for strikes. Most impressive of all, Orioles batters swung and missed at 23 of those 71 strikes. Masahiro did break the string of no-walks Yankee starts he began last week with one in the third, and allowed seven hits to go with the 10 K’s.

Tanaka was helped three times in the seventh, as Gardner retreated quickly to catch a Nelson Cruz liner, Alfonso Soriano dove to make a catch, and Brian Roberts snagged Ryan Flaherty’s vicious one-hopper. And that his team managed three runs got Tanaka out of early trouble. Baltimore starter Miguel Gonzalez went six, and the two handed off the ball to their respective pens.

Each bullpen escaped trouble in the eighth, but when Shawn Kelley allowed four hits and a sac fly to the first five Baltimore batters in the ninth, the two runs scored were more than the Yanks could overcome. On the one hand, none of those five stung the ball against Kelley, but he got two strikes against four of the five and couldn’t coax his signature swinging strike out until Adam Jones, who hit sixth, strode to the plate.

Against Baltimore closer Tommy Hunter, Soriano doubled to right to start the ninth, moved to third on Johnson’s single, and scored on a Brian Roberts foul to deep right. But Ichiro Suzuki, pinch running for Johnson, failed to advance to second on the play, and Yangervis Solarte stroked a dp grounder to short to end the game.

The baseball world has been wondering how the Yankee pen would handle things once Mariano Rivera left. David Robertson looked good filling the role in three games, but with him on the DL, after one Kelley save, this night represented one step back. It was as if the bullpen had contracted the

NoMo Virus

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!