What It Means:

Tanaka gave up just two hits, both of them singles. He didn’t allow his first one until the fifth inning. He was very efficient, throwing 53 out of 82 pitches for strikes while walking none and striking out four. Tanaka had a pair of shaky outings earlier this month, but he has bounced back by allowing just one run in 14 innings over his last two starts.

He’ll bring a 3.37 SIERA, 20.9 percent strikeout rate and 4.7 percent walk rate into a tough road start against the Toronto Blue Jays next week.