TORONTO -- If the Yankees do what most everyone assumes they'll do, which is play the American League Wild Card Game at Yankee Stadium and then beat the Minnesota Twins to advance to a best-of-five Division Series, the Cleveland Indians may not get a chance to beat up on the pitcher with the highest ERA in manager Joe Girardi's six-man rotation.

Fallen ace Masahiro Tanaka just can't be counted on anymore.

Not for the rest of this year anyway.

Terrible far too often this season, Tanaka delivered his second clunker in his last three starts Friday night.

This time, Tanaka allowed eight runs over 5 2/3 innings and the Yankees were spanked 8-1 by the playing-out-the-string Toronto Blue Jays.

Tanaka, who is 12-12 with a 4.94 ERA in 29 starts, has just one more regular-season start to gain back the confidence of Girardi, who currently seems to have two better playoff-start options in rookie Jordan Montgomery and Jaime Garcia based on what the Yankees have been getting from all three over the last couple of weeks.

Let's assume All-Star righty Luis Severino starts the Wild Card game. The way things are looking right now, it wouldn't be surprising if the Yankees' ALDS rotation then would be Sonny Gray, CC Sabathia and Montgomery or Garcia for the first three games, then, if necessary, Severino for Game 4 and Gray again for Game 5.

Tanaka?

He started the Yankees' last playoff game, a 2015 Wild Card Game loss at Yankee Stadium to Houston, and might be on the verge of being used a long reliever in a possible 2017 ALDS.

"You look at everything," Girardi said. "I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We still haven't clinched anything."

Tanaka was the biggest goat on Friday night when the Yankees' magic number to clinch a playoff berth was reduced to one thanks to the Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers losing their games.

A nightmarish first 2 1/2 months to 2017 for Tanaka led into a string of mostly good starts, and now with the Yankees on the verge of setting up a possible playoff rotation, he's reeled off two more atrocious starts in his last three.

Tanaka's issues against the Blue Jays are what's troubled him all season long ... bad command, inconsistent off-speed pitches, home runs.

The seven earned runs on his Friday line came on three homers - all three on off-speed pitches, the last a grand slam on an 0-2 slider to Ryan Goins, who went to the plate 0-for-22 for his career against the Japanese righty.

Tanaka's homers allowed total is up to 35, which ties him for first in the majors and 10 more than his previous career high.

Right from the get go, the Tanaka that the Yankees had been accustomed to getting every five or six days was missing in action. His Opening Day start at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., was a disaster: Seven runs over 2 2/3 innings, two homers allowed, Yankees lose 7-3 to the Rays.

There's been way too much of that ... eight runs over 1 2/3 innings against Houston on May 14, seven runs over 5 2/3 innings in Baltimore on May 31, five runs in four innings in Oakland on June 17, five runs over in 4 1/3 innings against Milwaukee on July 9, seven runs in four innings at Texas on Sept. 8.

And now a bad one against the Jays.

"It's very disappointing," Tanaka said. "We're here towards the end of the season and I understand how important these games are and you really want to go out there and perform, but just not being able to execute pitches and not being able to perform is disappointing."

Tanaka's last regular-season start will come next week, probably Thursday at home against the Rays. You'd think the pressure will be on Tanaka for a quick fix that perhaps could lead to a playoff start, right?

"No," Tanaka said.

Say what?

"There's no pressure," he added. "You just prepare the same way and you try to go out there and do the best you can. So, no ... no pressure."

Tanaka's wrong.

The pressure will be on, and a good start may not even be enough because Montgomery has kept the Yankees in games all season and tossed six shutout innings in his last start, a win over Baltimore that lowered the left-hander's 27-start ERA to 4.06.

Garcia has been good of late, too, with a 1.17 ERA over his last three starts that has dropped his season ERA to 4.19 ERA.

Tanaka's ERA over his last three starts is almost Satan-esque ... 6.65.

Yes, the pressure will be on next week.

Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.