NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- In any other year, Daisuke Matsuzaka would have been back in Japan, where spring training camps opened yesterday.
Instead, he was here, in the ultramodern offices of his agent, Scott Boras, sitting in front of a wall of baseballs (47 across, 31 down, 1,457 in all) and describing the first phase of his preparation to play not for his former team, the Seibu Lions, but for the Red Sox.
Dressed casually in a red
Matsuzaka has been working out at the sports fitness facility Boras operates in a cooperative arrangement with Soka University, a six-year-old liberal arts school whose roots, coincidentally, are in Japan. Yesterday's photo opportunity showing him work out at another neighboring school, Saddleback College, was canceled because of wet grounds, but Matsuzaka said that on Tuesday, he'd thrown off the mound for the first time this winter, throwing 60 pitches.
Everything went well, he said, while hinting that he was working on a new pitch. That, of course, is inevitably going to prompt speculation that the pitch in question is the legendary gyroball, though Boras rolled his eyes at the suggestion.
"First it will be the gyroball," he said, "backed up by the Loch Ness Monster."
If anything, Boras said, Matsuzaka is refining his two-seam fastball, a sinker with excellent movement to both sides of the plate that he used only sparingly in Japan, the agent said, because Matsuzaka's four-seam fastball was so overpowering.
Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell has visited "to get the initial introduction out of the way," he said by phone from his home in Cleveland. "He's a very engaging person. He was outgoing, and he likes not only to get his work in but you can tell that he's a person who is fun to be around."
Farrell observed two of Matsuzaka's workouts, along with Sox assistant trainer Mike Reinold. He also watched him do long tossing. "He was throwing on flat ground from 200 to 220 feet," Farrell said. "You can tell from the trajectory of his throws, and the way he was able to maintain his mechanics, without overextending or opening up, that he has very good arm strength."
Farrell said he gave Matsuzaka a set of tapes of hitters in the American League East, not so much for Matsuzaka to begin formulating his plan of attack, but just to put some names and faces together.
Matsuzaka said he had taken a stab at doing some research on his own.
