If you are to believe Daisuke Matsuzaka, you should disregard the two home runs jacked against him yesterday. The excerpt from the Globe:
Because it was the Orioles, an AL East rival, “I thought I’d take the opportunity to experiment a little bit,” Matsuzaka said calmly through translator Masa Hoshino. “See where they’re going to hit the ball, see where they wouldn’t hit it. The third and fourth inning, I was definitely experimenting.”
…
The breaking balls and offspeed pitches came in all counts and in every situation, and most were in the strike zone. Those high pitches he threw in his last two innings? Matsuzaka said he was trying to get a feel for the upper limits of the strike zone. He learned, he said, that hitters will swing at those pitches, and throwing “high fastballs and high sliders can be a little dangerous.”
What do you think? You can leave a comment or vote on the new poll at the right, but I believe Matsuzaka in this case. He needs to find out what hitters can do and can’t do, and it makes complete sense that he would try things out to figure out what he can get away with.
The results of the Mike Timlin poll are:
How will the Timlin injury affect things?
* He should still start the season as closer/be the closer.
4% of all votes
* This should get him out of the race for closer (a good thing).
48% of all votes
* Not at all, he’ll be ready for the season in whatever role we choose.
19% of all votes
* This is looking a lot like the end of the line for Timlin. Don’t count on anything from him.
29% of all votes
It looks like we don’t want him as a closer at all, and hopefully it is NOT the end of the line and Timlin gives us another gritty year.