Tate fans career-high 11 for Tampa

Dillon Tate posted career numbers Sunday, but he's already focused on what he can do better next time.
"It's a journey," he said. "So some of the things that I need to work on may be contingent upon what happens in the previous outing."
Yankees No. 13 prospect Dillon Tate struck out a career-high 11 as Class A Advanced Tampa blanked Clearwater, 3-0, at Spectrum Field. He scattered six hits without a walk over seven innings.

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"It's a work in progress," the 2015 first-round pick said. "It was a good outing as far as command went, and I was able to move the ball to both sides of the plate, but it's something that I need to continue to still work on. Especially with my fastball."
Tate (3-0) has spent his year trying to get better. The 23-year-old was in extended spring training until June 20 with a shoulder injury before entering the Florida State League.
"You definitely have to make adjustments as you go up, but I've had a lot of work to do. Being down in extended really helped me iron some things out. I'm actually really grateful for my time down there because I got a lot of productive things done," he said. "[I was] working on my delivery and getting comfortable with it and developing some more consistent fastball commands to help me get through lineups and working on my off-speed pitches."
Since joining the Yankees rotation,Tate has amassed a 1.47 ERA with 21 strikeouts and three walks in 18 1/3 innings across three starts.
In his best outing thus far, he worked in and out of trouble often. After Wilson Garcia led off the third inning with a triple, the right-hander got three outs on 13 pitches, including two strikeouts.

"Really just executing pitches and not worrying about what happens with the runner on third [was key]. I still have pitches to make, so I just went up there and did my best to execute," he said. "I think it was just good pitch calling by our catcher, [Austin Afenir], just keeping them off balance. I think that really helped out with limiting some damage."
Pounding fastballs, Tate surpassed his previous career high of 10 strikeouts, which he collected April 10, 2016 with Class A Hickory while he was in the Rangers organization. The UC Santa Barbara product did not issue a walk for the first time this season and the third time since joining the Yankees organization via trade on Aug. 1, 2016.
Although it also marked the first time in his career that he registered an out in the seventh, Tate found plenty to improve upon before his next outing.
"Eliminating some of the poor off-speed pitches that I threw, especially late in the game and really focusing on trying to execute my fastball a little bit better with two strikes," he said. "So those are a couple things that I didn't do well today that can be touched up on later in the week."
Reliever Chad Martin yielded a walk over two hitless frames for his first save en route to Tampa's league-leading 12th shutout of the season.
"I've seen a lot of competitive pitchers out of the rotation," Tate said. "You're subconsciously competing with the last guy who went out there. When they have a good outing, you're trying to be better than them. I think it's a lot of positive energy that we're all feeding off of in the rotation."
Threshers starter JoJo Romero (0-1) tied a career high with 10 strikes in his Class A Advanced debut. The Phillies No. 24 prospect gave up an unearned run on three hits and two walks over 6 1/3 innings.