The Angels were said to be one of several teams with interest in Masahiro Tanaka this past offseason, but their financial limitations — they didn’t want to go over the luxury tax threshold and only had a few million to spend — prevented them from getting seriously involved in the bidding. Tonight they will get their first look at the right-hander, who has been everything the Yankees could have possibly imagined in his first four starts. Probably more, really.
Tanaka’s worst start of the year was his last start, though even that was pretty good (two runs in seven innings). This Angels team came into Sunday averaging 5.57 runs per game with a team 113 wRC+, the highest and second highest marks in baseball, respectively. They can mash and this will be Tanaka’s biggest test to date. With all due respect to tandems like Jose Bautista/Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Jones/Chris Davis, and Dustin Pedroia/David Ortiz, the Mike Trout/Albert Pujols duo ain’t nothin’ to mess with. Here is the Angels lineup and here is the Yankees lineup:
- CF Jacoby Ellsbury
- SS Derek Jeter
- RF Carlos Beltran
- C Brian McCann
- DH Alfonso Soriano
- 1B Mark Teixeira
- 3B Kelly Johnson
- 2B Brian Roberts — Yangervis Solarte was a late scratch due to a sore shoulder
- LF Ichiro Suzuki
RHP Masahiro Tanaka
It is a cool and cloudy night in New York with no threat of rain. Nice night for baseball. The game is scheduled to begin at 8pm ET and you can watch on ESPN. Enjoy.
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