Masahiro Tanaka will not have restrictions on mound Wednesday for Yankees

Tanaka sustained a Grade 1 hamstring strain while running the bases on September 18 and missed his last scheduled start.

As Chad Jennings of the LoHud Yankees blog writes, Yankees manager Joe Girardi on Monday acknowledged that this means Tanaka is “probably” in line to start the AL wild-card game on Tuesday, October 6. “I knew that I was going to be out there before the season ended”.

“Definitely happy to be back out there”, Tanaka said through an interpreter. As a longtime big-league reliever who also believed in the value of analytics he was praised as a strong mix of old and new school, but the Angels experienced only modest success during his run and several of the team’s biggest moves-including the ill-fated signing of Josh Hamilton for $125 million-were pushed on Dipoto by owner Arte Moreno. Tanaka said he doesn’t see the start as a “tune-up”, rather another regular season start to “give the best I have”.

Last Monday, Tanaka threw on flat ground.

Tanaka noted that if he had any physical restrictions that he would not likely be pitching whatsoever, so he views it as a positive that he is able to get out on the mound before the season ends. Regardless, the Yankees have a chance to clinch a playoff spot as early as tonight, but the Yankees would need a little bit of help. “So for us, we want to get him back out there and know that he’s capable of doing everything he needs to do”. As time goes on, questions about his elbow have faded and Tanaka said his arm has felt fine.

He’s 12-7 with a 3.38 ERA, 0.99 WHIP and 8.2 strikeouts per nine innings in 23 starts. He began this season by struggling on Opening Day and wound up on the DL for a month with a forearm and wrist injury.