Thanks A Lot, Japan by Jared Carrabis
Sox lose in extras, Daisuke exits after 1 inning


If this were the second week of September, this is what baseball fans call, "Rock bottom." However, this is not the first week of September. This merely the second week of April. So, we can simply classify this as, "A rough start." Correction, "A really rough start."

Just when things seem like they can't possibly get any worse for the Red Sox, they do. It's not in my nature to point the finger at someone or something. I don't make excuses and I don't point fingers, however, Daisuke Matsuzaka's early exit from Tuesday night's game in Oakland leaves me no choise but to point my finger at Team Japan in the World Baseball Disaster--I mean Classic.

In Matsuzaka's first start of the 2009 season, I sat at Fenway and watched the Tampa Bay Rays take batting practice off of Daisuke. Giving up three home runs in his loss to the Rays, Matsuzaka gave up one fourth of the total home runs that he gave up in all of 2008. On Tuesday night, Matsuzaka hit a wall, and there is no one else to blame but Team Japan.

Matsuzaka threw over 90 pitches in his start against the United States in the WBC semi-final game. Had he been with the Red Sox at their spring training facility, the right-hander wouldn't have eclipsed or even come close to hurling that many pitches in a game that wasn't one of 162 for the Boston Red Sox. With Terry Francona miles and miles away, the Red Sox had no control over how Matsuzaka was used in the World Baseball Classic. As a result, Matsuzaka was thrown into the fire of a playoff atmosphere game that we are now seeing the after effects of.

In the middle game of this three-game set, Matsuzaka pitched just one inning. He faced ten batters, threw 43 pitches (22 for strikes) and along the way he gave up five earned runs on five hits, walked two and did not strike out a batter. Matsuzaka made his exit after just one inning of work with what the Red Sox have called, "arm fatigue." After getting roughed up in his first start and being that he could not pitch past the first inning on Tuesday, Matsuzaka may be looking at some time on the shelf until he can regain strength in his pitching arm. If this highly realistic scenario does occur, expect Clay Buchholz to join the Red Sox rotation as early as Thursday.

Matsuzaka was handed a three-run lead by the Boston offense, who scored three runs in the top of the first. The Red Sox collected three runs on an RBI single by Kevin Youkilis, and RBI double by JD Drew and an RBI single by Mike Lowell. Thanks in part to Matsuzaka's "arm fatigue", the lead was short lived and never retained.

Although Daisuke's train wreck of a pitching performance stole the spotlight of this game early, the real story of this game was the outstanding pitching by the Red Sox' bullpen. Trailing by two runs, Justin Masterson was handed the ball for four scoreless innings that saw the right-hander strike out six. Surely this was not a decision that manager Terry Francona wanted to make, but luckily for Boston, Masterson had been accustomed to being a starter during spring training.

The Red Sox tied the game up at five after an RBI single by Mike Lowell (2-for-6, 2 RBI) in the top of the fifth, and that's where the score remained until the twelfth inning. After Masterson's four scoreless, Manny Delcarmen (1.2 IP), Ramon Ramirez (1.1 IP), Hideki Okajima (2.0 IP) and Jonathan Papelbon (1.0 IP) combined to toss shutout baseball with a total of twelve strikeouts between the five relievers.

Javier Lopez took the mound in the bottom of the twelfth and struggled early and often. Lopez walked the bases loaded before giving up a walk-off infield single to Travis Buck that sank the Sox in extras. Another day of frustrating news (Beckett's suspension and Daisuke's injury) and another day of waiting for another Boston victory.

In my opinion, this team is far too talented to be playing the kind of baseball that they have been playing out of the gate. My best advice, don't listen to the media that will try and paint a picture that this offense won't get the job done in 2009. Players will have cold starts to a season, it happens to the greatest of all time, however, it just so happens that a majority of the Boston offense have started the 2009 campaign off to a slow start. You have my word, it won't stay this way much longer. This team will turn things around. Remember, hitting is contagious and so is winning.

-Jared Carrabis

Final Score: Red Sox 5, Athletics 6 . 12 Innings

Published on April 15, 2009

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