Brian Fluharty/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
It was the split-finger fastball that helped Masahiro Tanaka become a star in his native Japan and then jump to the United States and a $155 million contract with the Yankees in 2014.
At its best, the pitch darts sharply inward and down against right-handed batters. Its drastic late movement has left batters whiffing a third of the time they have swung at it — managing a measly .195 batting average against Tanaka’s splitter from 2014 through last season.
But like many puzzled pitchers around the majors these days, Tanaka has not been able to get his trademark pitch to behave quite the way it used to.