For the second straight season, Masahiro Tanaka has pitched pretty poorly out of the gate. He’s had some good starts here and there, but overall, a 4.95 ERA (4.82 FIP) in ten starts is a 4.95 ERA (4.83 FIP) in ten starts. There are 92 pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title at the moment and Tanaka ranks 81st in ERA and 77th in FIP. The numbers don’t lie.
Tanaka’s slow start last season was much worse than this season. Through ten starts last year he had a 5.86 ERA (5.31 FIP) and we were talking about skipping starts and phantom disabled list stints and things like that.