Even though he last pitched for the Boston Red Sox on June 19, Daisuke Matsuzaka expressed confidence about his ability to return to the major leagues.
“I think I can stand on the mound with 100 percent confidence,” Matsuzaka said through an interpreter after allowing two solo home runs in 4 1/3 innings during a rehab start Friday night for the Pawtucket Red Sox against the Syracuse Chiefs. “I approached tonight’s start like it was a regular-season game. I felt close to how I pitch in the regular season.”
Matsuzaka, who’s been on Boston’s 60-day disabled list with a right shoulder strain, gave up four hits, walked one and struck out three.
He threw 43 of 67 pitches for strikes and topped out at 92 on McCoy Stadium’s radar gun.
Leonard Davis pulled a 1-0 pitch over the right-field fence for a homer in the second inning. The ball bounced off the roof of an adjacent concession stand.
Kory Casto led the fourth by pulling a 1-0 pitch to right field that deflected off the glove of Sean Danielson and fell into Syracuse’s bullpen for a homer.
Matsuzaka said Davis’ home run came on a fastball and Casto’s on a curveball.
“If there was one thing that I wasn’t pleased with it was the command on my breaking balls,” Matsuzaka said. “It wasn’t as sharp tonight as I want it. My command on the fastball can be a little touch-and-go at times. But starting right from my warm-up in the bullpen, I felt that I was able to get after it right from the beginning of the game.”
Matsuzaka was on a 70-pitch limit and had thrown 63 through four innings.
“After I came in after the fourth, I was told my pitch count up to that point was 63,” he said. “I wanted to get out there and throw as many pitches as possible, so I asked to go back out there and (manager Ron Johnson) let me go out to face one more hitter.”
Matsuzaka spent the bulk of July and August rehabbing in Fort Myers, Fla.
He made one rehab start for the Gulf Coast Red Sox on August 24 and one for Double-A Portland last Sunday.
Where Matsuzaka next pitches will be determined after consultation with the Red Sox.
Syracuse beat the PawSox, 7-3.
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I’m displeased with the fact that the fucker is a fat bastard. I’m also displeased with the fact that he was hyped as hard thrower out of japan. And also his other stuff sucks because he can’t throw any of them for strikes, and when he throws it for stikes it just hangs up in the strike zone and the he gets killed. I remember his first start in the US, I think it was against The Royals. He did great job striking out 10 and getting a W, but while I was watching the game I began to ask myself why this guy got so much money when his stuff similar to Jae Seo and Kyle Lohse.
I’m also displeased with Matsuzaka’s everything ball to the point where I feel like breaking his hand. He better get it together by the post season. $53 M man? hasn’t shown it since his rookie year.
Such loving fans. Winning 34 games in his first two years . . . no matter how he did it . . . was well worth the money we paid HIM. Because of signing him, the Yankees didn’t get him and those 34 wins. That alone is worth the posting fee. And because of that posting fee we also won over the services of Oki (say World Series) and then Takashi Saito (still one of the best relievers in the game) and Juni Tazawa who looks to become a terrific pitcher. Even Kenshin Kawakami wanted to sign with the Sox thanks to that signing. Thank you Daisuke.
It’s critically important when considering the financial aspects of this signing, to separate the posting fee from his modest salary (very modest considering that Lucifer Boras was the agent involved). They are two entirely different cost centers, and had two entirely different purposes: 1. becoming a front runner in signing Japanese players & gaining entry to the Japanese market (posting fee), and 2. getting the services of one of Japan’s greatest pitchers, Daisuke (his salary). Both sums were appropriate to the reward, and both strategies worked well. Money well spent no matter how you parse it.
Were it not for the WBC, we would have enjoyed another winning year, as he pitched well enough in the WBC to win the MVP award, again.
How you guys can say he isn’t a good pitcher in the face of all this is mystifying. He will be back, will pitch well, struggle a bit as all who come off rehab do, and be ready for a great 2010. By the way, how come you have aimed all your wrath against Daisuke? How about Smoltz, Penny, JC Romero, David Aardsma, Craig Hansen, Julian Tavarez, and others who have done less for the Sox than Daisuke?
I for one can’t wait for his return. It will allow Tazawa to go to the Pen and return to AAA in the Spring, and take the pressure off aging Wake and Byrd, who are giving it everything they have. I suspect you will see a very different Daisuke Matsuzaka upon his return, one who is ready to fulfill his contract and make his critics look silly.
The Walksuzaka suppoeters always bring up the 34 wins. That’s the only thing they could use in an argument. But just like there are empty batting averages (singles hitters), there’s are empty win totals (pitching 5 innings). The fat bastard kills bullpens. He’d be an ace for an NL team, but he’s barely a 5th starter for an AL east team. And people don’t bring up those names you mentioned because they are no longer on this team, and when they were on the club they did talk about them. The. Red Sox were able to get rid of those bums, but they won’t be able to get rid of the fat one, because he is lazy, and has a fucked up arm from throwing a million pitches. And by the way his contract is hard to get rid off, even though its 9 million a year, because the ow1ner of such contract very few innings and tons of walks.
In 1990, Bob Welch won 26 games for the A’s and the Cy Young award. Was he a better pitcher than Roger Clemens that year? No, his offense got him many of those wins. Lat year, Dice K could have won 8 games as easily as 18. The bullpen and the offense saved him.
Wow, well I agree with one poster that Dice takes home far less than half of what an equally fat Sabathia makes, and I can confirm from my regular visits to Tokyo that Matsuzaka has made the Red Sox brand iconic through his TV ads and the much more routinely live telecast Red Sox games in Japan, where the game is still the singular “national past time” in a way that is exactly analogous to a different American era.
I also agree with the poster that we might stop scapegoating Matsuzaka for his posting fee. As far as his ACTUAL salary, you could name up to 50 embarrassing MLB pitcher who might act “insulted” by it.
As a sidebar, most of that posting fee got cancelled out (as far as the Boston vs. Spankees rivalry goes), when Cashman and the Yankees hosed millions into the shredder to sign Kei Igawa in pathetic retaliation. And then Boston reeled in Oki, Saito and Tazawa at competitive wages through this deal, and let’s think objectively about that. Granted Oki is in his usual September dead arm period and needs rest, but with Wagner on board, I hope we will be stacked for some big October moments from the bullpen. The guy got signed for rookie wages, because Dice put the city of Boston on the map.
Matsuzaka may personally never earn what Matt Clement earned per year while he was with us. He’s not a Lester or Beckett workhorse by any long shot, although he was in Japan, but it is surprisingly fashionable in the city of Boston to vent about his overall 19-3 record last year, sub-3.00 ERA and .211 BA allowed, or his shaky rookie season highlighted by 200+ Ks. Miraculous or lucky, maybe, but you make or blow the wildcard based on that kind of thing going on with your third and fourth starter, as I would think this season has proven. You need to make the playoffs first as a team, which I hope and trust we will do, before you can talk about bloody socks and “What Would Johnny Damon do”?
Dice-K doesn’t belong in a city quite like Boston, and I get that. He probably will get that too eventually, and because I happen to love Boston to death, to me that’s also a bit of shame for us. At the same time, I do support trading him. We went through the struggles of Penny and Smoltz and basically every other guy who makes Dice-K expendable, and yet we still have the hate on for Matsuzaka.
Despite eating his high posting fee, if Theo can time a “sell high” trade of Dice at some point next season, maybe to a team like the Nintendo Mariners, or to the NL West Coast teams, that might be best thing for the Red Sox. He’s not quite a match for the Red Sox, in the same way that Ellsbury’s electric season is not quite a fit us either.
To try to be clear, I am not attempting to insult anyone in the general thrust of this thread, which is that a five-inning pitcher with a career MLB 8.6 K’s per 9 innings punch-out rate should never, ever rest on such laurels, when he is wiping out our bullpen with those high pitch counts and his high wire act. A lot of this is frankly cultural too, which means it is hard to reconcile. I’m sure Dice would do cartwheels if Farrell challenged him to pitch up to 140 per outing, a pittance from the 230 or so he grew up with. Since the day he was born, he was coached to build up a rubber band arm, not to save his bullets. This is the samurai way of building arm durability, as inane as that must sound.
You should actually watch these Koshien Stadium high school championship baseball tournament games in Japan. Brutal heat in Osaka, sick pitch counts, ace starters pitching on a day’s rest, and the whole nation tunes into every minute of it like something out of the sporting past in America.