Big-Time Saturday

Coming off of the strongest outing of his short MLB career, Daisuke Matsuzaka will be facing off against Braves veteran John Smoltz on Saturday. Matsuzaka scattered 6 hits, no walks, and only gave up one run (on a solo homer) while striking out five in a complete game domination of the AL-Champ tigers. Daisuke's MO in Japan was having control, low numbers of walks, and giving up runs on the homer rather than a string of hits. Daisuke's return to form with the Red Sox is encouraging, as he's starting to look a lot like the pitcher they scouted in Japan.

Smoltz injured the pinky on his throwing hand Monday on a fielding play, and still may be a bit of a question mark on Saturday. Smoltz looks every bit as good as his 5-2, 3.19 era, 1.3 whip and around 8 k/9 would suggest, but he may not on his game Tomorrow.

Annnnnd There's The Outing We Were Looking For

Only the 4th matchup of two Japanese-born pitchers in the MLB, Tomo Ohka and Daisuke Matsuzaka faced off at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. Daisuke was on fire, giving up only one run, and scattering 5 hits and 3 walks over 7 innings. His control was ON, and he never fell too far into the one-inning ruts we've seen him fall into in recent history.

Lots of rumors seemed to be flying around about why he looked so solid on the mound this time around:
1. He took his side session the day before his start, not the usual middle day
2. He changed his conditioning regimen
3. He threw over 100 warmup pitches... in addition to starting sprints 6 hours before the game, and across the outfield long-toss.

The only one that seems to have been confirmed is number 3... it seems like Daisuke just needs to push himself to the limit to perform better. This might not be the healthiest routine for an entire season, though.

Daisuke versus Ichiro: Redux

Tonight, the infrequently posting (read: building a database) We Love Daisuke team will be going to Fenway to see Daisuke pitch against the Mariners, again. We originally had bought tickets to the April 12th game on spec that Daisuke's debut would be pushed back a day by rain. It wasn't, and our sponsor Ace Ticket got us the hookup for the 11th. Thursday got rained out, and now luck has delivered us a second chance to see one of the more exciting matchups Matsuzaka will face. Ichiro looked overmatched last time, but has been doing better as the season has gone on - it should be more interesting this time.

Pitching Matchup:

RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka (3-2, 4.36 ERA)
vs
LHP Horacio Ramirez (2-1, 4.41 ERA)

Horacio Ramirez and his 4.13 career era came over from Atlanta, trying to bolster a Gil Meche-less Seattle rotation. He's been seriously underachieving this year (in the eyes of the Mariners) and when Felix Hernandez comes back, this guy might be looking at a stint in AAA if he can't get his act together.

Tonight could be a good one, folks.