If you didn’t have a chance to watch the Red Sox game today or haven’t seen the highlights yet, you missed a masterful performance by Daisuke Matsuzaka against the Royals on Thursday afternoon. The Sox won the game 4-1.
The story of the game though was he pitching performance by Dice-K. He went 7 innings, scattered 6 hits, gave up 1 run, 1 earned run, struck out 10 batters and walked 1 on 108 pitches. At one point, he retired 10 batters in a row. This started with the last out of the first inning. Royals rookie 3B Alex Gordon broke up the streak with his first big league hit to lead of the 5th inning.
In listening to the postgame show on NESN, Dennis Eckersley said that he counted 7 different types of pitches during the game. It was very interesting to see him pitch. He wasn’t afraid to use a breaking ball in a fastball count or fastball in a breaking ball count. He had great command of his pitches and was hitting spots. It seemed to me that he was even getting some close calls from the umpire when he was hitting the corners of the plate.
Matsuzaka’s next scheduled start comes on Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners. His first batter he will face at Fenway Park will be fellow Japanese import Ichiro Suzuki.
Technorati: Boston Red Sox, Daisuke Matsuzaka
