Schadenfreude 180 (A Continuing Series)

Bill Madden, Daily News:

All those Yankee fears? All those Yankee questions? All those Yankee "ifs"?

It did not take long for them to be realized, did it? Like three innings into the season. A Yankee Stadium Opening Day ... turned ugly quickly Monday — sufficiently muting the sellout crowd of 48,469 when Masahiro Tanaka suddenly lost his command in the third inning and was battered about for five runs by the Toronto Blue Jays. From there, it was nothing but gloom the rest of the afternoon, sprinkled with a tepid Yankee offense, some mixed results from GM Brian Cashman's supposedly new and improved power bullpen and a horrifying base-running gaffe by Derek Jeter's shortstop successor, Didi Gregorius. ...

[G]iven the fact the Yankee legions — justifiably — had plenty of reservations already about this team, it is not at all encouraging that all of them should seem so real right off the bat.

Mark Feinsand, Daily News:

Masahiro Tanaka ... did little to calm fears that he is anywhere near the ace they so desperately need him to be.

Tanaka was knocked around for five runs over four innings, all of them coming in a brutal third inning in the Yankees' ugly 6-1 loss to the Blue Jays at the Stadium.

Johnette Howard, ESPNNewYork:

The sun was shining brilliantly. ... The red-white-and-blue parade bunting was hanging on the stadium railing like it always does on Opening Day ...

Then the game started. And it was hard not to think that if Tanaka himself is determined to spend this season as a junkballer, his life as New York's staff ace might not go well for him or the Yanks. ...

The Yankees offense was as weak as feared in their three-hit, 6-1 loss to the Blue Jays.

Brian Lewis, Post:

Toronto got the watered-down version of Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka that they expected, and roughed him up in a 6-1, Opening Day rout at the Stadium. Instead of the electric All-Star from last year, the Blue Jays faced a gas-less facsimile, one they said will have to make adjustments to get by with his injured elbow. ...

Tanaka suffer[ed] the second-worst inning of his Bombers career (a five-run third) and shortest stint for a Yankees Opening Day starter in 30 years (four innings).

John Harper, Daily News:

By the fourth inning, when Masahiro Tanaka had stopped throwing his fastball entirely in favor of sliders, splitters, and changeups, it seemed fair to ask, in all seriousness:

How soon can the Yankees schedule him for Tommy John surgery? ...

Instead everyone tried to paint it as simply a bad day at the office, more the result of getting in bad counts in the third inning, when the Blue Jays scored five runs, than anything to do with his elbow. ...

Of his 82 pitches on Monday, Tanaka threw only 26 fastballs, and all but a handful of them were two-seamers in the 89-90-mph range.