OAKLAND, Calif. - It had looked so promising. The Red Sox, whose bats had been in sleep mode for the first seven games of the season, were in the process of knocking around Oakland starter Dana Eveland.
That is, until Daisuke Matsuzaka walked off the mound, 43 pitches and one inning deep into his start last night. He had nothing in his brief appearance, which was short in the number of outs he got but not in the time it took to get them.
He came off the field, was patted on the back in the dugout, and sent into the tunnel. His night was over, his team in a two-run hole despite scoring three runs in the first.
Matsuzaka's problem was later diagnosed as arm fatigue - and perhaps one could excuse the jokes about how fatigued a pitcher can get throwing 43 pitches in the first in ning.
"We talked to him the other day because he expressed a couple days ago some kind of general soreness or fatigue in the back of his shoulder from the WBC," Francona said of Matsuzaka. "We thought we talked it through pretty good in Anaheim and he came out tonight and didn't really have a whole lot. We'll reevaluate him in the morning."
Asked about Francona's comments, Matsuzaka said, "I haven't had the chance to speak with the manager yet after the game ended, but for me personally I think that I'm OK physically."
Long after Matsuzaka exited, the Sox bullpen kept them in the game, which went into extra innings in front of the few hardy souls left of the 22,132 who began the evening at the Oakland Coliseum. On a night in which the Sox needed at least 11 shutout innings from their bullpen, they couldn't quite get there, the 6-5, 12-inning loss dropping them to 2-6.
Lefthander Javier Lopez, the sixth Sox reliever, walked two lefties among his first three batters in the 12th, then walked Bobby Crosby to load the bases with one out. One out later, Travis Buck hit a high bouncer that Dustin Pedroia couldn't quite get to first base in time, Buck beating the throw for the game-ending infield single, concluding the proceedings after 4 hours 24 minutes.
"Javy's in a tough spot," said Francona, who said there was no one to bring in behind Lopez. "He'd been in his third game in a row seven games into the season. That's tough duty. We didn't have a choice. He got the ball on the ground, just bang-bang play goes against you, you lose."
The Sox had their chance in the 10th and couldn't come through, even after loading the bases with two outs for David Ortiz, who popped out to short right field against Brad Ziegler.
Matsuzaka spent most of spring training with Team Japan instead of the Red Sox, earning his second straight MVP in the World Baseball Classic. But getting in game shape so early in the process has not proven wise for position players and pitchers alike.
