Thursday, April 5, 2007

Nice-K

Daisuke Matsuzaka's 2007 debut is in the books and the critics are having a hard time finding something bad to say about 7 innings, 1 run, 1 walk and 10 K's, even if it was against the punchless Kansas City Royals.

I saw him pitch in Philly during his final tune-up of the spring, and he was really wild (4 walks and 7 K's in 4 innings). It's almost as if his stuff breaks too much. My prediction is that this will be an up-and-down season for Dice-K, and at times, a frustrating one for people who have him on their fantasy teams. He'll probably have several more outings like today's, and several where he struggles with his command, and really pays for it.

Still, Red Sox fans have to be encouraged by the way he and Beckett closed out the series in Kansas City, after a disappointing Opening Day.
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3 comments:

Unknown said...

There are reasonable questions about his durability. So why send him out for the 7th having thrown 97 pitches through 6?

His 11 pitch 7th is no big deal. But he ends at 108.

A lot of pitchers with a lot of major league innings have been pulled before 97 this week (Johan, Smoltz, Oswalt).

I promise you that he might be a horse through June. But I don't want any part of him after July 1 if Francona keeps this up.

And Vladdy just went yard. It's hard not to love the fact that he doesn't use batting gloves.

April 5, 2007 at 11:13 PM
Brian said...

Frese, have you read this? Its just an interesting discussion about the point you made.

April 6, 2007 at 9:53 AM
Unknown said...

I'll allow for the possiblity that our pitchers are babied. I'll allow for the possiblity that there are genetic freaks (like Randy Johnson) who can throw out rageous pitch totals with little to no repercussion. I'll grant that DiceK could be one of them.

But whether or not his old regimen allowed him to stay healthy is irrelevant. In the article, Francona even says that they're not going to allow him the practice of occaisionally throwing a bullpen after he gets removed from a start. He used to pitch on the same day of the week every week. They're not going to structure their rotation so he can do that. He used to pitch 25 games a year, at most. They're not going to shut him down after 144 games (the season length in Japan).

There are significant differences between what their pitchers go through, and what ours are expected to go through. If the Sox were treating him like nothing changed from Japan (25 starts, once per week, all the extra throwing that he wanted), I would gladly admit that it worked so far, and should continue to. But they're not going with the formula that worked. They're tinkering with it.

In addition, many pitchers with excessive pitch counts at early ages haven't fallen apart right away. Steve Avery topped 175 IP 4 of his first 5 full major league seasons (21-25). After turning 26, he threw 472 IP in 5 more seasons. He barely made it to 30 as a major league pitcher.

Kerry Wood turned 26 as he crossed the 800 inning mark (in 2003). The pitch count abuse he suffered in high school was similar to Dice K (supposedly once threw both ends of a double-header in the Texas state tournament). The pitch count abuse at the hands of Dusty Baker in '02 and '03 is well chronicled. And in the three years since he turned 27, he's thrown 215 innings.

Just because 26-year-old Dice K hasn't had any issues, doesn't mean that 27 and 28 Dice K will continue to be healthy.

April 6, 2007 at 10:37 AM

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