KYODO NEWS - Sep 30, 2017 - 17:43 | Sports, All

Aggression was the key to a 15-strikeout gem in his regular season finale, Masahiro Tanaka said Friday.

While New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi praised the quality of his ace's pitches in a 4-0 win at Yankee Stadium over the Toronto Blue Jays, Tanaka credited an aggressive plan with catcher Austin Romine with making everything click over seven innings.

"It wasn't the quality of the pitches today that enabled me to be aggressive, but rather our plan to go out and attack," Tanaka said in Japanese. "We didn't make that decision after we saw what my pitches were doing today. It was more because we took an aggressive stance that allowed me to find a rhythm -- and that's how the pitches were good."

"This (aggressive posture) is what I've been trying to repeat in my starts. We talked before the game about our plan and what aggressive approaches we could take with individual hitters. We were on the same page, so he (Romine) could throw down the sign quickly and we could just keep attacking. "

The win boosted Tanaka's record to 13-12 and lowered his season ERA to 4.74. With the Yankees in the playoffs and with an outside shot at finishing the season in a tie for the division lead, some saw Tanaka's start as an audition for the postseason -- a hypothesis Girardi dismissed.

"I think he had a pretty good string in the second half," Girardi said. "I thought he was pretty consistent. He's had a couple of bad starts but for the most part they've been pretty good."

"He had a pretty good second half for us and we're going to need that going forward."

Since the All-Star break Tanaka is 6-4 with a 3.77 ERA. Prior to the break, he allowed 23 home runs in 102 innings. In his 76-1/3 second-half innings, Tanaka has allowed 12. His 15 strikeouts in a game are the most he's had in the majors.

"I think (the big thing today was) the difference between his fastball and splitter," Girardi said. "His fastball was 92, 93 (miles per hour) all day, the split had much better depth, and that was the big difference.

"In the seventh inning, everything (he threw) was crisp. The fastball had more life to it. The split was as good as I've seen it this year and the slider was pretty good as well."

Tanaka admitted his command was sharp, but again credited Romine with part of that.

"Part of (what happened) today was my being able to pitch the way I want to, and another part was having Romine behind the mask and leaving a lot up to him -- that combination proved extremely potent."