The New York Yankees have gone through a flurry of players from Sakura over the past few decades. Among the most notable ones, Masahiro Tanaka’s name shines as bright as Sirius, with his seven years of exceptional performance portrayed in the 174 games he played in the majors. What his Japanese fans didn’t expect was to watch the once-feared pitcher of NPB return as a mid-level player after he left the Yankees to get back to his homeland in 2020.

Masahiro Tanaka is arguably one of the biggest pitching phenomena that the Nippon Professional Baseball League had ever witnessed before he set sail for the ‘Land of Opportunities’. The man who once clinched six NPB All-Star positions almost consecutively has managed to clinch just two since his return to the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, his Japanese team. What might have possibly happened that led the ace to face a decline in his 2013 form, seven years down the line?

Masahiro Tanaka’s golden years before MLB and the disaster that followed

A month after his debut in the NPB scene in 2007, Mā-kun became the first rookie fresh out of high school to throw a complete game shutout since Yu Darvish’s similar stint back in 2005. For the next seven years, the entire fanbase of NPB saw him strike out an unbelievable 1244 times, with his last season on the team before his MLB debut serving as the best proof of the powerhouse that is Masahiro Tanaka.

He racked up an excellent 24-0 win record across 27 starts, earning a 1.27 ERA and striking out 183 across 212 innings pitched. For a pitcher who clinched an Eji Sawamura award and was named the NPB Wins and ERA Champion along with a Gold Glove and Best Nine Award—all in the same year of 2013, his comeback to the team 7 years later was disappointing, to say the least.

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Tanaka entered MLB equipped with the same aggressiveness portrayed in his 97-mph fastballs in 2014. After spending seven seasons playing for the Yankees, when the Japanese fastball sensation returned to his home base in 2020, NPB fans were eager to see him clinch the same awards consecutively as he once did. That didn’t happen.

Since his return to the Eagles’ dugout, Mā-kun has managed to strike out a mere 333 times in the last three seasons, with his ERA hanging as high as 4.91 just this year. The ace who once boasted a win percentage of 1.000 dived to an underwhelming .308 in his comeback year. His throws weren’t spared of the ropy form, either.

The former Yankees pitcher, who once threw at a whiff rate of 17% under the Bronx Bombers’ banner in 2019, saw it decline to 9% this season. Once revered and feared for his terrifying 97-mph fastballs, Masahiro Tanaka managed to keep the exit velocity anywhere between 91.3 mph and 90 mph in the last two seasons.

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With an uncertain future ahead in his home country and rumors of him making a comeback to the Yankees’ dugout for the following season, NPB and MLB fans will have to wait and watch if their dear Mā-kun can manage to make a massive comeback sometime soon.