Matsuzaka's Near-No-Hitter

The Weirdness of Dice-K

I'm not following the Rays-Bosox ALCS at all, but this headline caught my eye.

Matsuzaka's 2008 season must have been the most suspect, least impermeable 18-win, sub-3.00-ERA campaign in history, full of high pitch-counts and low innings-counts, as well as a league-leading 94 walks issued. His survival was predicated largely on a .164 opponents' batting average with runners in scoring position, lowest in the majors.

"When Daisuke is pitching, at some point you run out of patience," Ortiz said. "He won 18 games this year. I don't know how he does it, but he does it."

He began Friday night at his maddening, inefficient best/worst, walking the bases loaded between a pair of outs, only to extricate himself delicately. He mixed in only 12 strikes among his 27 pitches in the inning.
"I had a tough time getting going," Matsuzaka said through an interpreter.

Presumably, someone said something to him between innings -- tongue-lashings typically require no translation -- because he was a different pitcher from then on, beginning with a three-strike dismissal of Dioner Navarro to open the second. From the second through the sixth inning, Matsuzaka needed only 16, 16, 10, 10 and 10 pitches.

"He went against his norm," Floyd said. "He usually pitches backward [by throwing breaking and off-speed pitches early in the count], but he went to his fastball. We hadn't seen that from him before."

Matsuzaka still had a no-hitter entering the seventh, and more importantly a 1-0 lead, but Crawford drilled a single into right field -- at which point Larsen, whose 1956 perfect game remains the only no-hitter in postseason history, breathed a sigh of relief -- and moved to third on Floyd's single to left-center.

With double-barreled action in the Red Sox' bullpen, Manager Terry Francona not only stuck with Matsuzaka -- who wiggled out of the jam on a shallow fly ball, a strikeout and a harmless grounder to short -- but also sent him back out for the eighth having already thrown 107 pitches.

I mean, it's a great performance of sorts. He just doesn't like it when a batter gets a hit. So he refuses to throw strikes. A quick look through Fangraphs shows his BABIP is a little better than league average thank to the Bosox defense. He walks a tonne more guys than league average but it's his AVG against that shows he just doesn't allow the hitter to take good swings.
Conseqeuntly his WHIP is a hair below league average, which is amazing.

The Dice-K theory seems to be that a walk isn't as good as a hit if nobody can get a hit to drive in the run. Amazingly, it's working. I have a feeling Billy Beane's A's would have a shit of a time if they faced Dice-K in the play-offs. It wouldn't be a crapshoot when his patient hitters will be waiting for their pitch, and it never comes.

Today's Mixed Bag

Please Explain
Here's an interesting one in the Weekend Australian today:

THE Federal Opposition has accused the Government of failing to properly investigate a legal agreement which saw Australia's wheat exporter channel $290 million of its money to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said between 1997 and 2003 the Australian Wheat Board paid a Jordanian trucking company to transport its wheat through Iraq.

However, an independent investigation has now found the former AWB, now AWB Ltd, unwittingly provided kickbacks to the former Iraqi dictator via the trucking company, under the United Nations' corruption ridden oil-for-food program.

Mr Rudd said he did not want to point fingers at the AWB and suggest its members were to blame.

However, he said he believed the Australian public should be concerned about how this happened in the first place.

Mr Rudd said the AWB had informed the federal foreign affairs department in 2000 of its intention to enter into an agreement with the Jordanian trucking company and was told there was no international legal reason impeding this decision.

He was concerned Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer had not properly investigated the company or the agreement at the time.

"My challenge to Mr Downer is ... what was the detail of your response to the AWB request or letter to you at that time concerning the commercial arrangement with this Jordanian trucking company," he said.

"The stakes are very high here - $US221 million which went from the AWB into the pockets of Saddam Hussein personally.

"That's 14 per cent of the total amount of corrupt payments received by Saddam Hussein under this oil-for-food program."

The AWA insisted it had no idea the money it paid to a Jordanian transport group, Alia, was funnelled to Saddam's murderous regime.

What I want to know is why the ALP is beatinng about the bush with this stuff when there are bigger problems afoot.

The Off-Season Moves
So now that Joe Torre and Brian Cashman will stay with the yankees, it seems like the order of the day is to re-sign Hideki Matsui and go after BJ Ryan and a center fielder at the right price. My guess is that they will angle for a trade with the Twins for Torii Hunter, rather than sign Johnny Damon to a hefty contract.

However, the bigger news of the day is that Daisuke Matsuzaka is having problems with the Seibu Lions getting them to 'post' his contract for the MLB to bid. They figure that although the price on Matsuzaka would be high, they'd rather keep their last star player in a time when they are having trouble drawing a crowd.
The real shame is that Matsuzaka feels he's ready now:

秋季練習後に黒岩彰球団代表と話し合った松坂は「何年もかけ、準備してきたものが整ったという気持ちが強い。もっと深く話し合い、自分にとっていい方向に行けばいい」と話し、今後も粘り強く交渉する意向を示した。
　黒岩代表は「個人的には世界を目指す気持ちは理解できるが、西武グループのシンボルとして、球団を経営していく上で必要な選手だと伝えた」と語った。

Well, he figured to be the only starting pitcher the Yankees were likely to go after this off-season. In all honesty, I think this guy's headed for Pinstripes at some point. Rumours had it the Yanks were cashed up to go posting after him.

Catcher Kenji Johjima of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, is now a Free Agent and is saying he wants to test the waters in the majors.


I think at 29, there won't be that many takers. Maybe the Mets who will look to replace Mike Piazza, but I think even they were put off by the non-performing contract of Kaz Matsui. He's a great player, but it's hard to say if his "skills will translate across the Pacific" as they like to say.