NEW YORK — Every five days, the New York Yankees' pitching problems disappear. Exhausted bullpen? Injured rotation? Call-up options running thin? None of it matters when Masahiro Tanaka has the ball.
"I think you could argue that he's been as valuable as anyone on our team," manager Joe Girardi said.
Wednesday was Tanaka's finest start of the season, and that's really saying something. In his Subway Series debut, Tanaka tossed a shutout to beat the Mets 4-0 at Citi Field. It was the Yankees' first win since Tanaka's previous start, and nearly a third of the team's wins belong to Tanaka this season.
"I'll just keep on working so that (Girardi) will make that type of comment in the future," Tanaka said.
BOX SCORE: Yankees 4, Mets 0
The Mets countered with a young phenom of their own, and highly touted prospect Rafael Montero pitched well in his major-league debut. He allowed three runs on five hits through six innings, but he was little match for Tanaka, a 25-year-old who's 6-0 with a 2.17 ERA through his first eight major-league starts. Tanaka famously went 24-0 in Japan last season, and the Yankees — and the rest of Major League Baseball — are seeing exactly why.
He struck out eight, walked none and even got his first hit. He's the first Yankees rookie to begin his career 6-0 as a starter since Whitey Ford in 1950. He's the first Yankees rookie to pitch a shutout since Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez in 1998.
"He was still strong at the end," pitching coach Larry Rothschild said. "And you could see he wanted to go to the wire."
At Yankee Stadium for the first two games of this series, the Mets scored a total of 21 runs. They pummeled a Yankees pitching staff depleted by injuries to CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova, Michael Pineda and Shawn Kelley. The Yankees came into the game with the fourth-worst team ERA in the American League.
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Tanaka, though, has been among the best pitchers in baseball. He's tied for second in wins and fifth in strikeouts (with just seven walks), and his ERA is outside the Top 10 by thousandths of a point.
"I think it's a little bit too early to say that I'm successful here," Tanaka said. "Obviously I have a seven-year contract with the New York Yankees, and I want to be able to be a good pitcher throughout those years. So I'm just taking it day by day and trying to be a better pitcher."
With the Yankees needing to snap a six-game Subway Series losing streak, Yangervis Solarte hit his third home run in the past six games, Mark Teixeira hit his seventh home run in the past 14 games he's started, and Brett Gardner had two hits, stole a base and scored an insurance run in the seventh, giving him three straight multi-hit games.
The Mets had just one extra-base hit.
In the top of the ninth, Tanaka was allowed to hit for himself so that he could stay in the game and try to finish off the Yankees' first complete-game shutout of the season. Hitless so far, Tanaka slapped a single through the right side of the infield.
Tanaka joked after the game that it was his personal highlight of the night, but it was second baseman Brian Roberts who seemed to say what everyone else was thinking.
"Apparently he can do everything," Roberts said.
Chad Jennings writes for The Journal News in Westchester, N.Y., a Gannett affiliate.
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