Tanaka Gains a Mentor but Loses His Breath
TAMPA, Fla. - Soon after Masahiro Tanaka signed with the Yankees last month, one of the first things he did was to call Hiroki Kuroda, his new teammate and Japanese compatriot. It was part of Tanaka's duty in accordance with the senpai-kohai relationship.
The senpai is the more experienced person, the mentor; in this case, Kuroda. The kohai is Tanaka, and it is customary to call any other Japanese players on his team to pay his respects.
'It was a very nice introductory call,' Kuroda said. 'It is typical in Japanese culture. We just spoke for a little bit because we did not have the chance to meet and talk before this.'
Tanaka, who is 25 and went through his first official workout with the Yankees on Saturday, has much to learn from the 39-year-old Kuroda, who has pitched for six seasons in Major League Baseball, four of them with the Dodgers; he is entering his third with the Yankees.
For instance, Kuroda is one of the most physically fit pitchers in all of baseball and has logged thousands of miles running from foul pole to foul pole since he was a high school player in Japan. There is no running assignment Kuroda cannot handle.
But whatever the content of their introductory call, it appears that Tanaka did not ask Kuroda if he should be prepared to run, even a little bit, on the first day of practice. After throwing a light 32-pitch bullpen session in front of about 75 members of the Japanese news media, then taking an easy fielding session, Tanaka and the other pitchers were asked to do some modest running.
But in his four laps around the warning track of a practice field, about a mile, Tanaka gasped for breath as if he were an amateur runner nearing the end of his first marathon.
Tanaka said that years from now, when he looks back on his first day in pinstripes, the one thing he will remember will not be the huge news media contingent, or the mound session alongside Kuroda and C. C. Sabathia. It will be those torturous four laps, acknowledging that they had been difficult.
'I didn't know that I was going to run this much,' he said through his interpreter. 'I'm a little bit of a slow runner. But that part I really can't help.'
It is not what Tanaka does on the jogging track in February that matters, but what he does on the mound in the regular season. The Yankees hope there is no correlation between Tanaka's conditioning work on Day 1 and his performance in games that count. But it is safe to say that had the Yankees owner George Steinbrenner been alive to witness the display, he would not have been pleased. After all, the Yankees paid $20 million to Tanaka's Japanese team for the right to sign him and committed $155 million more to him in contract obligations.
Tanaka acknowledged that he had not been prepared and mentioned it twice without prompting during a news conference.
'The running part,' he said, 'that was really hard for me today.'
Before they even took the field Saturday morning, the senpai, Kuroda, asked Tanaka if he wanted to play catch with him during warm-ups, and Tanaka happily agreed, much to the delight of the Japanese photographers, who took hundreds of frames of them tossing a ball back and forth.
'I feel very fortunate and very thankful that he is here,' Tanaka said of Kuroda. 'He's a veteran here in the majors, and obviously he is one of the key guys in the rotation for the Yankees.'
Kuroda came to the United States in 2008 and made $7.4 million that year. Tanaka will make $22 million this year. Kuroda, who has the lowest career earned run average for any Japanese pitcher with at least 150 starts (3.40), will make $16 million in 2014.
He also came to camp in excellent shape, as usual. Kuroda had been working out in Los Angeles alongside the former Yankee Phil Hughes since Jan. 2, and threw hard during his bullpen session Saturday.
'Obviously, I was prepared,' Kuroda said through his interpreter. 'I did my usual work, nothing different. Plus I got younger.'
As for Tanaka's inaugural bullpen session, he threw a bit harder than he did Thursday during a throwing session at the minor league complex. Francisco Cervelli, who caught him both times, said Tanaka had thrown with more conviction Saturday, hitting the corners of the plate and firing some convincing fastballs.
All the while, Tanaka was followed closely by dozens of reporters who recorded his every move, his every gasp for air. Tanaka said he was flattered by the attention. As with the running, he did not expect it.
'He's going to get used to that,' Cervelli said. 'When the whole team comes, it's going to be the same for everybody. He's not the only guy who's making 100 million.'
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