TAMPA — If Masahiro Tanaka isn’t the Yankees’ Opening Day starter against the Astros on April 4 at Yankee Stadium, it means he is hurt.
While Tanaka is a given to make his second straight season-opening start, the names that follow the Yankees’ ace are also simple to identify.
What isn’t so easy is determining the order in which Luis Severino, Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi follow Tanaka.
At this point, CC Sabathia and Ivan Nova are competing for the fifth spot.
“We kind of thought about it because we had so many things we were dealing with when we came back this spring we didn’t have anything set in stone,’’ manager Joe Girardi said about the pecking order of the rotation that had several health issues after last season.