It's spring training time, and we Yankee fans are already dreaming of World Series Glory. Alright, so we have not had a lot to celebrate lately, long gone are the George Steinbrenner golden days, but hey, I was a Yankees fan during the 1970's, nothing could be as bad as that...
Anyway, on to the good news. On Friday, during a spring training game in Lakeland Florida, three Yankees pitchers combined for a no-hitter, in front of about 9000 fans against the Detroit Tigers. The Yankees starter was Masahiro Tanaka, a 28 year old right hander, who spent his initial professional baseball years in Japan. He came to the Yankees in 2014, with a $22 million salary. In Friday's game he pitched 4 1/3 innings , with 6 strike -outs and 2 walks. His best pitch is a splitter, which, when working, is extremely effective.
Next up was Chasen Shreve, a 27 year old left handed, who stated his major league career with Atlanta, but has been with the Yankees since 2015. He has never become a break out star in his relief pitching career, although his career stats are not terrible:
His is 39-16 , with a 3.12 ERA. Hopefully, he will be worth his $ 533,400 salary in 2017 ( $ 500,000 is the minimum salary for a major league player, by the way) Shreve was brought into Friday's game to get the last 2 outs of the fifth inning. He had one strike-out.
Finally, appearing for the last 4 innings, was 24 year old left hander Jordan Montgomery. Montgomery was a 4th round draft pick for the Yankees in 2014, he spent last season in the minor leagues, between double A Trenton, and triple A Scranton-Wilkes Barre. His season record was 14-5 with a 2.13 ERA. His 4 hit less innings on Friday included 2 strikeouts.
So, while the spring training no hitter has made barely a splash, it has made the Yankee pitching battle for the starting rotation slots a lot more interesting. I mean , Tanaka, CC Sabathia, and Mike Pineda are the shoe-ins, but who get the call?
The name Montgomery has to at least come up in the conversation today.
Anyway for now, THE YANKEES WIN, THEEEEEE YANKEES WIN!