Last night, Daisuke Matsuzaka was great.
Last night, Daisuke Matsuzaka carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning and a two-hitter into the eighth. He pitched seven shutout innings for only the fourth time this season. He left behind a little bit of a mess in the eighth (two on, none out), but he was picked up nicely by Hideki Okajima, young Justin Masterson, and, of course, Jonathan Papelbon and was thus the deserving winning pitcher as the Red Sox opened the American League Championship Series with a very tense and exciting 2-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
What a weird, contradictory year it has been for the Japanese righthander. He won 18 games and lost only three and he led the league in opponents' batting average (lowest, that is, at .211) and was third in ERA (2.90). But he benefited from a generous run support and he led the league in walks (94). He barely qualified for the ERA rankings because those 18 wins were achieved in a paltry 167 2/3 innings, a shockingly low workload for someone with that many victories.
The Baseball Gods were smiling on him. There is no other way to put it.
His start against the Angels in Game 2 of the Division Series was standard Dice-K. Gifted with a 4-0 lead in the first inning, he putzed around on the outer fringes of the strike zone, refusing to challenge hitters while allowing single runs in the first, fourth, and fifth. He needed 108 pitches to get through five innings and, of course, he was not brought out for the sixth. He was denied the victory in the 7-5 Red Sox triumph, which was proper baseball justice.
The first inning last night was the Japanese version of Deja Vu All Over Again. Matsuzaka walked leadoff man Akinori Iwamura on five pitches, and that was the beginning of a harrowing frame in which he would likewise walk Carlos Peña and Carl Crawford, which brought up veteran DH Cliff Floyd with the bases loaded and two outs.
