Daisuke Delivering as Promised So Far - Look Out Texas!
This picture is from back on April 12 when Daisuke threw his first pitch in Fenway Park against Ichiro. That was when we still weren’t quite sure what we had in Daisuke Matsuzaka. Now that we are a quarter of the way through the season, we have a much better idea of who Daisuke is going to be.
And let me be the millionth to say that he is the real deal. So far, he has pitched even better than his incredible numbers show, mostly because of a few rough innings where he seemingly fell apart temporarily. But even in these situations, he straightened it right out, striking out the side the next inning a couple times. Even up against the great pitchers to be found in the AL, he is great:
- 62 innings pitched is good for 13th in the league. He will probably be 4th after his game tonight since 3 other guys pitch and he’s only 5 IP off the lead. Giving the team this many innings makes him all the more valuable, as the key to the Sox winning has been the limited need for the bullpen.
- 6 wins ties him for 3rd, with only Beckett and John Lackey having more (7)
- 7th in strikeouts with 58, good for an average of 8.42/9IP, or just about 1 per inning.
- Walks have really been the problem in those troubling innings, but 18 actually isn’t that many. That is a K/BB ratio of 3.22, which is actually rather remarkable (Santana leads the league at 4.44. Compare Daisuke more to Curt Schilling at 3.33)
- Finally, his ERA is 4.06, good for 27th best. He did face the Yankees twice, and they hit everyone. He also got knocked around by Seattle the second time they saw him, so I wouldn’t expect this to stay much under 4 throughout the season. Even so, the Sox should be able to score enough runs to get him 15-18 wins, maybe even 20 if he gets lucky
We’ll see how he does tonight, facing Texas for the first time this year. They have been hitting better lately, but I expect Daisuke to be ON tonight.
Stumble it!