Kuzul

Daisuke Matsuzaka is the proverbial box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.

Last Saturday night, against the defending NL champion Phillies, Dice-K threw a one-hitter over eight innings, allowing no runs, walking four, and striking out five.

Then in his next start, Thursday night versus the Royals, this was his line: 4.2 innings, eight walks, one hit batsman, one strikeout, three earned runs, and just two hits. Plus, he threw a wild pitch that scored a run.  The eight walks matched his career high, and five of them came in the fifth, when he allowed all three runs.

The guy is both maddening and tantalizing. You never know what you’re going to get from him on any given outing. At times he looks like an All Star, while at others he looks like a Double A pitcher. 

If Matsuzaka is defined as the Sox’ No. 5 starter, then he’s as good, or better, than most in the AL. This season he is 3-2 with a 5.77 ERA.

The problem is all the hype Matsuzaka came with. He came with a fine international pedigree and was supposed to be an ace, not a No. 5.

Matsuzaka’s command and control problems are now the stuff of legend. Including hit batsmen, the 29-year-old righty has put 248 runners on base in his career without granting them a hit. And he’s done that in just 466 innings. When his 427 career hits are added in, Matsuzaka has allowed a total of 675 base runners, for a 1.45 WHIP during his four-year career.

In short, the inability to consistently throw strikes severely limits Matsuzaka’s effectiveness. 

For more than three years, Matsuzaka had been whistling his way through the graveyard and flirting with disaster. After holding opponents hitless in 24 consecutive bases-loaded at-bats, the inevitable finally occurred against the Yankees on May 17. It marked the first time Matsuzaka allowed a run in such a situation since April 8, 2007.  

Such a streak was pure luck, and it was simply amazing that he got away with it for so long.

But Matsuzaka has become accustomed to such situations. Though he has held batters to 1-29 with the bases loaded over the past few seasons, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been costly. 

In his six bases-loaded plate situations against the Royals on Thursday night, Matsuzaka issued a walk, got four outs, and threw one costly wild pitch that resulted in a run.

The two runs brought Matsuzaka’s total with the bases loaded to 11 since 2008. Walks and wild pitches can kill a pitcher.

In his best season, 2008, Matsuzaka led the Majors by walking 13 percent of all batters he faced and he led the AL with 94 walks. Yet, he also led the AL by stranding 81 percent of the base runners he allowed. However, if a pitcher puts himself in those positions often enough, he will inevitably end up getting burned.

Despite Matsuzaka’s success that year (18-3, 2.90 ERA), it’s important to note that no pitcher had ever won at least 18 games in so few innings pitched. And Matsuzaka has never had another season in which his ERA was even close to 2008’s, registering 4.40 in 2007, 5.76 in 2009, and 5.77 this year.

Which brings us to Matsuzaka’s other significant limitation; innings pitched. Matsuzaka throws far too many balls, resulting in high pitch counts, early exits, and overtaxed bullpens.

In his first season (2007), Matsuzaka averaged 6.4 innings per start. That has dropped in each successive season, to 5.8 in 2008, and 4.9 in 2009. This season, Matsuzaka is averaging 5.7 innings per start. But that is largely based on his eight-inning outing against the Phillies. Excluding that start, Matsuzaka is averaging just 4.9 innings per start, much more in line with his history. 

Because he takes so long to warm up and get loose, Matsuzaka is not a candidate for the bullpen. So that is not an option for the Red Sox. For better or worse, he is a starting pitcher.

Many Sox fans surely feel that it is time to cut ties with Dice-K and just move on. The problem is, after this season, he still has two years left (2011 and 2012) on a contract that will pay him $10 million each season. Beyond that, he also has a full no-trade clause.

The question is whether Dice-K even has any value at this point. After all, he is a starting pitcher with serious command issues. His inability to throw strikes and eat up innings has undoubtedly hurt his value.

Clearly, the highly competitive AL East, with its high-output lineups, is not the best place for a pitcher like Matsuzaka. Perhaps he would be better off in the National League, especially on a West Coast team that would put him closer to his native Japan.

In recent years, the Red Sox have made deals with NL teams for pitchers who couldn’t cut it on Boston; Jeff Suppan, Joel Piniero, Brad Penny, and John Smoltz all found some degree of success in the NL after flaming out in Boston.

Matsuzaka wouldn’t make a playoff roster, considering the pitchers ahead of him. Yet a team with playoff hopes, such as the Red Sox, will need much better starts from the back of their rotation just to qualify for the playoffs. 

What Matsuzaka’s current trade value is, and how much the longer the Red Sox will continue to roll the dice each time they send him out to the mound, is an unknown at this point. But we may have answers to those questions by the trade deadline. 

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Earlier this month, I said Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka was “trade bait for 20 cents on the dollar.” In my opinion, he was dead weight, clogging up a roster spot on a terribly underachieving team.

But the team has picked up steam since that declaration, and he has been a big reason why. He baffled the Toronto Blue Jays two starts ago , and today improved upon that brilliant performance. In doing so, he had a tremendous chance to make history.

He was crushed against the Yankees in his last start, so though he was certainly capable of bouncing back against the Philadelphia Phillies in the season’s first batch of interleague play, I remained somewhat unconfident in his ability. Did he ever make me regret my doubts.

He worked around walks in the first, second and fourth innings, and hadn’t allowed a hit to one of the more potent offenses in the majors entering the fifth. Philadelphia, after Boston had scored the final four of their five runs in the top half, went quietly in that frame as well.

Matsuzaka needed only eight pitches to breeze through the sixth, acquiring the second out by swiftly covering first base, corralling an underhand toss from David Ortiz, and stepping on the bag just prior to Shane Victorino’s lunging arrival.

Having a no-hitter through five innings is a story, but Matsuzaka there is a big difference mentally, being just nine outs away from having his place in history. Pitchers start to sit by their lonesome at this juncture, on one side of the dugout while their teammates chat on the other.

A very disciplined pitcher who thrives for perfection, Matsuzaka remained focused, retiring the Phillies most dangerous hitters, Chase Ultey and Ryan Howard without much difficulty before his facing Jayson Werth. Potentially seven outs from being hoisted into the air in celebration of a no-hitter, it is necessary to have a laid-back persona that isn’t susceptible to tightening under pressure.

As his sequence against Werth suggested, he was far from stonefaced and consumed in seriousness, something some pitchers have been when approaching history. After tossing in a curveball for strike-one, Werth crushed a second, lacing it into Matsuzaka’s direction. With split-second timing, Matsuzaka reached his glove out and snared the scorched rocket off Werth’s relatively hot bat.

As Werth stared at the mound during his shocked walk back to his dugout, Matsuzaka walked off towards his. As he did, he stretched his mouth outward, gritting his teeth slightly as if to say “Whew! That was close!” His teammates and coaches that watched the play unfold laughed at his sigh of relief. Six outs away. And it was clear everything was going his and the Red Sox way with his cat-like reflexes.

In the eighth, it was third baseman Adrian Beltre’s turn to snare a hotshot and keep the no-no alive. With the crowd on their feet at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, some cheering on their Phillies and others cheering on Matsuzaka, Carlos Ruiz tagged a 2-2 pitch in the vicinity of Beltre.

Lunging to his right, one of the better defensive third baseman’s in the league secured the low line-drive , hopped up in an instant, saw that Raul Ibanez had drifted too far off first base, and rifled a throw over to Kevin Youkilis at first, in time to double up the dumbfounded Ibanez.

Two outs were made on one pitch, and, with members of the crowd and the Red Sox dugout cheering, Matsuzaka motioned into Beltre’s direction, giving him well-deserved thanks.

Four outs away, but it was not to be. His fastball’s velocity was mid-90s with late life. His curveball was fluttering. His changeup had impeccable tailing action. He had been unhittable. Then he was just nearly so. On a 3-1 count to Juan Castro, Matsuzka threw a curveball, a good one, down and inside.

Castro, a light-hitter with a .231 career average, managed to wait patiently and get just enough of the barrel on it to loft a looper to left-field. It was a dying quail, to use baseball terminology, and dropped just beyond the diving attempt of shortstop Marco Scutaro and just in front of outfielder Jeremy Hermida as Beltre, trailing the play, slapped his glove in disappointment as the ball innocently bounded through the grass.

The first hit, and the Phillies partisan crowd clapped in recognition of Matsuzaka’s flirtation.

The Japanese righthander finished the inning, inducing pinch-hitter Ross Gload into a lowly pop-fly to right. The one hit takes his performance off the list of top-stories and leaves him out of the history books, but shouldn’t diminish the fact that he threw eight strong innings , allowed that one measly hit, no runs, and five strikeouts.

His best outing of the season, an extraordinary start that he and the Red Sox needed. And one that makes me strongly regret doubting his abilities, abilities that I hope recur throughout the rest of the season.

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Roy Oswalt has recently expressed to the Houston Astros owner that he wants to be traded. He has come out and said that he would wave his no-trade clause. 

He is 32 years old and has never won a championship. This year he finds himself on the team with the worst record in the National League and no signs of competing in the near future. 

The Boston Red Sox are currently fourth in their division posting a 22-21 record mainly because of how inconsistent their pitching has been. Their hitting is in the top-five in most major categories this season, which is a surprise to most people.

Currently, they are sixth in average, third in runs, fourth in OBP, second in slugging, and second in OPS in the American League hitter-friendly league. 

Their pitching rankings are, however, horrible for the American League. They are 13th in ERA, ninth in BAA, 10th in OPS, and 10th in WHIP. This coming from the team that was built around pitching and defense.

Oswalt is having possibly the best year of his career although his record of 2-6 does not reflect that with how bad of a team he is on.

Brandon Lyon has had a pretty good year as a reliever posting a 4.15 ERA and a BAA of .235. If you look at his numbers, he strangely had better numbers last year in the American League. He also pitched for the Red Sox posting around a 4.00 ERA.

Jonathan Papelbon has been the Red Sox closer for a while now and has just about been as good as it gets. He has 10 saves this year while allowing hitters to just hit .194 against him. He is still young and currently in the prime of his career.

Dice-K has had his ups and downs with the Red Sox. Two years ago he looked awesome, and then was injured last year and going into this year. In his last four starts last year, his ERA was around 2.00, and when he’s healthy can be very good. 

My proposed trade is Roy Oswalt and Brandon Lyon to the Red Sox for Jonathan Papelbon and Dice-K.

Why this makes sense for the Red Sox:

The Red Sox are in desperate need of getting a staff together that actually works. They would lose Pap, but he has built a rep around Boston to where people do not like him, also David Bard has been lights-out this year and is ready for the big role.

Adding Oswalt would add another ace to the list and Lyon would put a stable pitcher in the bullpen that is struggling right now.

Why this makes sense for Houston:

It makes Oswalt happy by sending him to a team that can compete for a championship. It also brings in a star in Papelbon who would instantly make an impact in the closers role. It also gives the team a younger player who they can build around.

Dice-K can be a great pitcher when healthy and when he gets healthy soon he will find it easier to pitch in the National League. He could have the potential of winning 18 games again and be a star. 

Maybe they can work something out with draft picks in there too or something to seal the deal, but I think this is a deal that both teams would benefit from.

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Last night against New York, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched 4.2 innings, giving up seven runs on nine hits.

So far this season, he is 2-1 with a 7.89 ERA.

He has pitched in four games and three have been awful. His third outing, against Toronto, was perhaps the best of his Major League career, going seven, allowing one run on three hits. He fanned nine and walked none.

As for the bad starts, he has been let down in each one by one bad inning. Twice it was the first—as was the case last night, as the Yankees got to him for five runs—and once the sixth.

It is very much reminiscent of Jon Lester’s start last year. Lester went on to have a very good season, but in April and May, almost every outing was tarnished by one weak frame. Now Matsuzaka is going through the same thing.

He has pitched 21 and two thirds innings on the season. Take out the three bad innings, and his ERA drops from 7.89 to 1.98.

Obviously, I know that you cannot just erase three innings from the statistics, but the fact is, outside of those bad frames, Daisuke’s been very, very good. I wouldn’t panic just yet. He’s closer to being back than you think.

There is another issue here, though. And it relates to comments made after the crushing loss last night.

Catcher Victor Martinez said: “I’m just back to try and help [Matsuzaka] go through the game. At the end he’s the one who has the ball in his hand.”

“At the end, he’s the one who has the last word. He’s the one who has the ball in his hand. I’m just putting suggestions and he can say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

In other words, Martinez was saying Daisuke’s performance was Daisuke’s fault. This raises two points.

One, it is very unusual to hear a catcher come out after a game and throw his pitcher under the bus. I can’t remember a time when the likes of Jason Varitek, Jorge Posada, or Brian McCann said anything like this. While they never condone or make excuses for bad pitching, they don’t blatantly attempt to distance themselves from the game.

Two, what if it isn’t all Daisuke’s fault?

What I mean by that is, what if the pitchers are having trouble when Victor is behind the plate. There’s no doubt that the rotation can do better than they have done and Beckett now effectively has Varitek as his personal catcher.

Being a backup suits the ageing Varitek nicely. He won’t get worn down as quickly and will be more effective down the stretch. However, with this team fast running out of time to get started, perhaps giving the captain more starts is worth a shot.

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Recently, the $50 million man has been having all kinds of pitching trouble, at a time when the Boston Red Sox cannot afford it.

Prior to last nights game against the New York Yankees, Daisuke Matsuzaka’s stats were not too pretty, but niether are any of the Red Sox starters.

After two good seasons for the Red Sox, gaining 15 and 18 wins respectively, Matsuzaka has not faired well in the majors due to injury problems, and overusing his arm in the World Baseball Classic (WBC).

The 2009 season was an absolute disaster for Matsuzaka, only able to start 12 games, going 4-6 with a 5.76 ERA.

Many people trace Matsuzaka’s pitching problems stem from his pitching during the 2009 WBC. Matsuzaka himself has admitted to a hip injury during the WBC and also to changing his pitching style to work through his injury.

Matsuzaka’s era currently sits at 7.89, with a win/loss record of 2-1.

Despite a great performance in his previous start against the Blue Jays, where he pitched seven innings and gave up three hits and a run, Matsuzaka has taken another dive with his pitiful performance at Yankee stadium.

Monday night, Matsuzaka was chased out in the fifth inning after giving up nine hits and seven runs.

Matsuzaka did not look impressive at all, despite striking out three batters, and was relatively easy pickings for the Yankee lineup. At times, Matsuzaka served up cutters right down the middle.

Matsuzaka has’t fared extremely well against the Bombers, with career numbers at 3-3 with a 5.48 ERA.

The win over Toronto is Matsuzaka’s only bright spot this season, as the other starts have been five and six run games, the latter against the last place Baltimore Orioles.

In his first two starts this season, against Los Angeles and Baltimore, Matsuzaka has had trouble in the fifth inning especially, letting up five runs in the fifth of both starts.

After getting off to great starts in both of these games, Matsuzaka has shown fatigue and his pitch count has ballooned.

The problem seems to be his inability to perform late in games, a problem that a starter in a majors must be able to overcome in order to have success.

Matsuzaka’s inability to get out of the fifth inning is putting more pressure on a Boston bullpen that is already taxed by the poor performance of the other pitchers in the rotation.

With Matsuzaka already at the bottom of the rotation, he rounds out a Red Sox lineup that is not clearly getting the job done this season.

The Red Sox will likely keep working with Matsuzaka to get him back to top shape, but people are already wondering why he has not come through on his promise for a great 2010 season.

Granted, it is still early, but there hasn’t been much production out of a pitcher who was once so heavily sought after and Matsuzaka won’t be seeing games in August and September if he is unable to go deeper than four innings.

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Has Daisuke Matsuzaka finally turned the page?

Let’s be honest, when the Red Sox posted a $50+ million ransom in order to secure the rights just to negotiate with this guy, and then signed him to a six-year, $52 million contract, this was the type of outing we thought would be the rule, not the exception. We were told he had six or seven pitches he would throw for strikes, and that his control was impeccable. Yet, we have seldom seen that pitcher in a Red Sox uniform.

In three years, he has had eight outings in which he did not issue a walk… and three of those outings were in May, 2007. Between then and this evening there have been a grand total of four such outings.

Tonight he beat the Toronto Blue Jays, allowing just one run on three hits over seven innings. He did not walk a single batter, and he struck out nine in the game. During his three year tenure with the Sox, this is only the second outing of this quality that he has provided the team. On April 1, 2008, Dice-K beat the Oakland A’s (in Oakland), 2-1, allowing a run on two hits over 6.2 IP, walking no one, while striking out nine.

That is really the only outing that matches up by the numbers in terms of the number of base runners allowed… but tonight he lasted one out longer.

There have been other outings that were close, but only once previously in his Red Sox career had he allowed as few as three base runners in a game without walking a batter. In 2007, he had nine outings in which he allowed one run or less, but in only two of those outings did he allow as few as three base hits — he issued walks in both of those contests (3 BB on 6/16 vs SF; 1 BB on 6/27 vs SEA). In 2008, he pitched three games in which he allowed no runs while limiting the opposition to two hits, but on all three occasions he walked a pair of hitters (four baserunners in total). Last year he had one outing in which he allowed three hits… but he issued three walks in that contest.

There have been several more outings in which he allowed only two or three hits, but he issued as few as three and as many as eight walks in those outings. He has rarely had his “stuff” and “control” in the same game.

Has he finally turned a page? I wouldn’t bet on it; but, when he pitches like he did tonight he is about as good as any pitcher in the big leagues. Tonight was undeniably one of the best games of his career in the United States. His performance this evening may end up being something we look back on later this year and point to as being a turning point for this season.

The Red Sox took a 2-0 lead in the first when Marco Scutaro led off with a walk, took third on Dustin Pedroia’s ground-rule double, and scored on J.D. Drew’s groundout. Pedroia came in on Kevin Youkilis’ sacrifice fly. Jason Varitek’s sixth home run of the year made it 3-0 in the second inning.

They scored another run in the fourth inning, thanks to some shoddy defense by the Blue Jays and an RBI double by Darnell McDonald.

In the fifth inning, Drew reached on a bunt single and Youkilis walked. Shawn Camp replaced Eveland and walked Mike Lowell, loading the bases. Drew came in to score on a wild pitch. Varitek was then walked intentionally, reloading the bases. Youkilis scored on a Billy Hall forceout.

Toronto broke through in the sixth inning on doubles by John Buck and Fred Lewis.

After the game, Matsuzaka said: “After that tough beginning to the game last time, I tried to keep things simple and I thought that things improved. I just wanted to keep that going, so from my first pitch tonight I treated it as a continuation of the last game.”

Dana Eveland (3-2) gave up all of Boston’s runs in four-plus innings. He allowed five hits, issued four walks, and hit a batter.

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Matsuzaka walked no batters for only the second time in his last 33 starts.

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Josh Beckett is expected to miss Friday’s start because of back spasms.

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The Red Sox won their third straight game and went two games over .500 for the first time this year.

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Boston Red Sox right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka , whom I consider to be trade bait for 20 cents on the dollar, made his season debut against the Baltimore Orioles and confirmed my harsh feelings towards him.

Matsuzaka is a former ace who won 18 games in 2008, and a return to those winning days would be very welcome, but his recent injury history and his lack of control has made him quite erratic, undependable, and dead weight. So, considering his rust and predictability, I was not in the least surprised at how he fared against his first two hitters.

A struggling Adam Jones took a first pitch strike, watched as two fastballs and two curveballs missed, and jogged to first base. Jones is fleet of foot, and Matsuzaka kept a keen eye on him, but his attentiveness to the baserunner backfired in more ways than one. A pickoff throw to first was errant, sending Jones sprinting safely down to second.

Now a single by Nick Markakis could score a quick run for Baltimore, which came in with an abysmal 5-18 record. And they would get it from his talented bat as the young right-fielder began his grand day at the plate with a ripped single to left, scoring Jones not more than 10 pitches into Matsuzaka’s outing.

Life would get better for the Red Sox pitcher, but one run has far too many times been insurmountable a deficit to overcome by his team. He worked out of the first with no further damage and pitched two scoreless innings.

In the tops of those two scoreless frames, Boston managed to score, as David Ortiz slugged a Brad Bergesen fastball to right-center field and Jonathan Van Every crushed the first pitch of the third more than 400 feet to dead center.

This slim lead would increase in the fourth on RBI-doubles by the scuffling J.D. Drew and the red-hot Adrian Beltre, and Matsuzaka tossed a perfect bottom of the frame. Everything was going well for Boston. A 4-1 advantage was theirs and Matsuzaka had settled down. Then, it all fell apart.

Baltimore feasted on Matsuzaka for six fifth-inning runs. Five of which were scored with two out, with the big blow coming from Wieters, a three-run homer that gave the Orioles the lead. Matsuzaka was replaced by knucklerballer Tim Wakefield once Miguel Tejada doubled after Wieters blast.

That pitching change didn’t help matters, as Wakefield nearly duplicated Matsuzaka’s mediocrity by surrendering four runs in the sixth, the final two coming on a homer by Markakis, who drove in five runs overall.

Ten unanswered runs by Baltimore, and though Boston somehow managed to score five runs in the latter innings, including four in the top of the seventh, the incredible offensive display by the Orioles and the Red Sox batting practice style of pitching doomed them in recording their second straight loss against the American League East’s worst.

That is what this Red Sox team will do. When they get good pitching they can’t hit. When they get bad pitching they hit. They are frustrating to no end.

They have good pitchers, but they haven’t received many good outings from them, at least not good enough for their woefully inconsistent offense to take advantage of. If this continues to be the case as I expect, a lot more losses will be on the horizon for this underachieving team.

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