The field for Yoshinobu Yamamoto is shrinking.
Though his free agency is still lingering, the Giants have been told they’re out of the running for his services, Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area reported Thursday evening.
The 25-year-old right-hander met with the Giants earlier in December at Oracle Park in San Francisco and had been told they’d be given “consideration,” The Athletic reported earlier this week.
Now with the Giants out of the mix, there is an “expectation” that Yamamoto will either end up singing with Los Angeles or in New York, according to Pavlovic.
That means both the Mets and Yankees are still in the race for the coveted star pitcher, who could get a contract north of $300 million as the Jan. 4 deadline to sign him looms.
The Yankees have met with Yamamoto and his agent Joel Wolfe in both Los Angeles and Manhattan, going as far as to include Hideki Matsui in a pitch video and giving the hurler a No. 18 — the same number he wore with Orix Buffaloes Yankees jersey.
“It’s been fun to get to meet him a couple times and be around him and have conversations,’’ Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of the meetings. “Now we’ll see how it goes. I know all teams are now putting their best foot forward and negotiating. That’s above my pay grade. We’ll see where he lands.”
The Post’s Jon Heyman tweeted after the Giants news that the “Yankees have made a significant bid on Yamamoto, but at this point they haven’t heard, one way or the other.”
The Mets, meanwhile, have also met with Yamamoto twice, first when owner Steve Cohen and president of baseball operations David Stearns flew to Japan before the winter meetings.
This past weekend, Cohen hosted Yamamoto for dinner in Connecticut that also had Stearns, manager Carlos Mendoza and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner in attendance, The Post’s Joel Sherman reported.
On Thursday, both The Athletic and Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Phillies made an offer in their “aggressive” pursuit of Yamamoto, but the club is not expected to be among the favorites to land him.
Heyman handicapped the Yankees and Dodgers as the top two teams to sign Yamamoto with the Mets just behind.
The Phillies, Blue Jays and Red Sox are among the teams also potentially in the running.