For all the media hype, the hyperbole regarding his seemingly endless repertoire of pitches that can dart in and out of the strike zone, and all the Boston Globe articles dissecting exactly the size, shape, composition and color of every Dice K dump, Daisuke Matsuzaka made his Major League Baseball debut for my Boston Red Sox this afternoon....and forgive me if I cannot contain my Papelboner based on the performance.
Final stat line - 7 innings, 6 hits, 1 BB, 10 K's, 108 pitches (74 for strikes), a half dozen looks of awe from Royals hitters walking back to the dugout befuddled, and about two dozen times I could not contain my excitement.
Before catching the game, I had my doubts about Dice-K. Could this guy be worth the $103 million dollar investment, seemingly based off a strong performance at the WBC? Could he translate his success from
As of now, we have a tentative answer to the first two questions ("are you f*&$ing crazy, of course!") and a "well, we won't know about this until August" to the third.
Look, I may be a crazed Boston Sports fan like everyone else raised in the Hub to bleed with their teams wins and losses, but I will do my best to not replicate everyone's favorite ESPN Sports writer, Bill Simmons, and unabashedly toss my concerns to the wind after one Dice K start.
First, he faced the frigging Royals (John Buck, their starting catcher, has the most career home runs of anyone in the starting lineup....36). Second, it's ONE start. Shoot, as has been pointed out to my attention, Tuffy Rhodes hit three home runs on Opening Day. Third, let's wait and see what happens when he goes through teams a second or third time (although Dice-K remained very impressive late in the game a third time through the order).
With that said, screw it - I'm all in for Dice K having a great season....and I probably just guaranteed he blows out his elbow in mid May.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Dice K's Debut
