After a pair of stellar starts to open the 2019 season, Masahiro Tanaka has returned to his career tendencies, pitching efficiently, save for a home run hiccup to provide a noticeable blip on the radar. Tanaka has surrendered at least one home run in each of his past five outings, and while the right-hander has still been effective overall, he hasn’t shown the level of dominance he expressed over his first two starts of the year.
A culprit behind Tanaka’s mild regression is the lack of bite in his trademark splitter. Tanaka’s split finger fastball (47.