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Ian Browne / MLB.com :
He has become the escape artist, weaving in and out of traffic and almost always coming away with a happy ending. It's hard to fathom just how Daisuke Matsuzaka has been able to do it, but that topsy-turvy formula has resulted in another 15-win season. With more than five weeks to go, the right-hander of the Boston Red Sox tied the career high in wins he set in 2007 by once again finding a way to minimize the damage. In Tuesday night's 7-2 conquest over the Orioles, Matsuzaka walked five and threw a whopping 105 pitches over just five innings. Dice-K is now 15-2 with a 2.77 ERA. In this one, Matsuzaka achieved a somewhat unique feat, becoming the first American League pitcher to win six separate five-walk starts in a season since Bobby Witt in 1987. The last Red Sox pitcher to pull off that type of Houdini-ism was Mickey McDermott, who had eight five-walk wins in 1953.
The Red Sox established early momentum for the second night in a row. Jacoby Ellsbury led off the game with a single to right and stole second against Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera. Dustin Pedroia drew a walk and David Ortiz drilled an RBI single up the middle. Jason Bay made it 2-0 with a sacrifice fly to left. Jason Varitek, finally heating up after the most prolonged slump of his career, belted his second homer in as many nights, this one a liner to right to lead off the second. As it turns out, Matsuzaka needed every bit of that lead on a night he was far from his sharpest. The Orioles rallied in their half of the third, getting RBI singles from Ramon Hernandez and Luke Scott to slim Boston's lead to 3-2. An inning later, things almost got much worse for Matsuzaka when he loaded the bases with nobody out. But he got a huge strikeout against Melvin Mora, and then Aubrey Huff popped to third to end the threat. The Red Sox had another rally in them in the fifth, scoring three runs on a Kevin Youkilis two-run homer and a Varitek RBI double, extending the lead to 6-2.
Jeff's Barr-ometer: Dice-K somehow always seems to get the run support in most of his outings, but he has a talent for getting himself out of self-inflicted jams he gets his team into. With an astronomical 77 walks this year already how does he do it. Well for starters he does not give up the long ball as much as he did last year (only 8 this year) and he's has been tagged for only 97 hits. He can be his own worst enemy piling up high pitch count numbers but he gets people out while he is quietly chewing up innings. He has proved to be worth every penny the Sox brass used on him. While he wont get the CY Young nod he should garner some consideration for MVP. He's only given up 42 runs the whole year and while he is tough on himself in the media, we realize what a masterful job he is doing on the hill. Good show Dice-K!
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Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Ian Browne / MLB.com : He has become the escape artist, weaving in and out of traffic and almost always coming away with a...
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