Yankees' Tanaka to make second rehab start Wednesday

New York Yankees right-hander Masahiro Tanaka felt good Friday morning after tossing three scoreless innings the evening prior for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in his first rehab start, prompting the club to schedule his next outing for Wednesday against Pawtucket.

"He feels good about it. He says he feels good today, his arm feels great," Yankees manager Joe Girardi told MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. "He wants to be able to throw more sliders, curveballs -- that sort of thing. When you throw 41 pitches, a lot of times you don't get a chance to work on it much."

The 26-year-old was expected to miss at least a month when he landed on the disabled list April 29 with a right forearm strain and wrist tendinitis, but Girardi suggested Tanaka may be able to return to the Yankees' rotation if all goes well Wednesday.

"I think the one thing that you have to do is you have to evaluate each start he makes and how crisp the stuff is, and then decide if he's not a 100-pitch pitcher. Can your club handle that?" Girardi said. "Have we done that before? Yes. But I think we'll continue to evaluate where we think he's at and we'll make a decision."

Tanaka, who famously elected for rehab over Tommy John surgery when he was diagnosed last summer with a torn ulnar collateral ligament, is expected to throw 65 pitches in Pawtucket.