It cannot have escaped your attention that Daisuke Matsuzaka makes his Major League debut today for the Red Sox. Boston set it up for him yesterday, beating the Royals to tie the series 1-1 and allowing Matsuzaka to try to win the rubber match. First pitch is scheduled for 19.10 (BST) and it promises to be a great way to start the Easter weekend. Hopefully MLB.TV will be up to it, because I’m sure there will be plenty of traffic.
Those looking for a Dice-K primer should head over to the Special K page on Boston’s official site. In particular have a read of the “Variety of pitches up his sleeve” article and watch the main multimedia clip by Will Carrol from Baseball Prospectus, dissecting Dice-K’s pitching mechanics. Seeing how similar his delivery is to Roger Clemens’s is an eye-opener, not least because physically they are quite different in terms of body shape. Whether he can produce the same results is what we are all waiting to see. It should be fascinating to watch.
2 comments
A debut I actually want to see, and I have NO COVERAGE on TV…
Goddamn you Sportsnet… I have no baseball today AT ALL. And I get TOMORROWS Boston game…
ARGHHHHH!
So, did Dice-K live up to the hype in his first outing?
You could arguably say that the Royals possess the least intimidating batting line-up in the AL, so it was a nice way for him to settle into the Majors. Matsuzaka will also benefit from being somewhat of an unknown quantity during the first season. Of course every team will have copious amounts of scouting reports and video to study, but all of that information cannot quite prepare you fully for the first few times you are standing in the batters box against him.
Still, Dice-K will be battling through his own disadvantages as well during this first season (new team mates, different rest period from what he was used to in Japan, learning a new language, living in a new country etc) so these factors will even themselves out. What you are left with is someone who is going to win a lot of games. His track record suggested that, in time, he will be a top pitcher in the Major Leagues, and there seems little reason to doubt it. His performance against the Royals was only a beginning, but as far as beginnings go it was very impressive and bodes extremely well for the future.
Dice-K deserves the attention he’s getting, but don’t overlook the performance of Zack Greinke. He pitched a very good game, only hampered by the bad habit of letting the lead-off hitter get on base. Greinke has battled back from personal problems and he’s the sort of person who is easy to root for. Most people tuned in to see Dice-K and will be talking about his performance (you can see his first pitch and first strike out on MLB.com!), but hopefully they will also note the way Greinke pitched as well.