The NY Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays are playing on Friday night and the MLB game has the first start for Masahiro Tanaka and it comes with a live stream from MLB.com and is live from the Rogers Centre starting up at 7:07 pm ET and gives the Japanese star a chance for his first taste of the major leagues.
The Yankees started the season with two straight losses to the Houston Astros and they won the final game of that series and now Derek Jeter starts his farewell tour in another city after he got some Texas themed gifts in Houston. Jeter is going to be one of the main focal points of the Yankees this season and it has nothing to do with him retiring, as he is the prime option at shortstop with Brendan Ryan injured and that means that he cannot afford to go down like he did last season when he played in just 17 games after coming off of a serious ankle injury.
Jeter leads a team with some very high expectations, as the Yankees signed Tanaka, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann to contracts in the offseason and they spent millions of dollars after the team missed the playoffs last season for the second time in a decade. Tanaka signed for over $150 million and now he gets his chance to start in the MLB and this one will come in international territory before he returns to the stadium for his next start.
Tanaka will face off against Dustin McGowan and now he doesn't have the pressure of trying to get the Yankees their first win, as they took care of that against the Astros on Thursday with a 4-2 victory to end that series. The Yankees had their worst record in over 15 years last season and now they are looking to improve greatly and they feel they can chase the Boston Red Sox after they won the World Series last season. Tanaka was as good as advertised in the spring after going 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA last year in Japan and now the Yanks are hoping for similar results.
The Yankees are looking up in the division for now and it comes after the Rays and Jays split their four game series and the Sox are 2-1 after playing the Baltimore Orioles. The Yankees will matchup Michael Pineda on Saturday with RA Dickey and that will be an afternoon game and it comes before the team returns home next week and that will be a big deal for Jeter as he has his last home opener of his career. The Yankees have holes in the infield, but if they can stay healthy they should be back in the playoffs mix and adding all those players surely will help after the power outage that was last season.
The Yankees come into the game after scoring just seven runs over the first three games and while it's still early, the team would love to have its high priced players start hitting. The Yankees have high expectations as usual and it's World Series or bust for the team.
