36-year-old Masahiro Tanaka notched his 200th career win on Tuesday night at Tokyo Dome, dealing six innings of two-run ball with four strikeouts in the Yomiuri Giants’ 4-2 victory over the Chunichi Dragons. He left with a 3-2 lead, and the bullpen (Kota Nakagawa, Eito Tanaka, Taisei, and Raidel Martinez) closed it out. “It took a long time, but I’m just happy to finally get it done. This isn’t the end. I want to contribute in the playoffs, too,” Tanaka said after the game.
It didn’t come easy for the former New York Yankee and Rakuten Eagle, who finished the 2025 campaign with a 5.00 ERA across 45 innings. After earning wins No. 198 in his season debut and No. 199 on August 21, he lost three straight decisions before getting one more shot in his final start of the year. He made the most of that opportunity.
Tanaka now has 119 wins with Rakuten, 78 with New York, and three with Yomiuri. He joins Yu Darvish, Hideo Nomo, and Hiroki Kuroda as the only other Japanese players to register 200 combined victories between Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball. Congratulations!
Now, let’s dig into the rest of the week’s action as the regular season came to an end on Sunday.
