Daisuke Matsuzaka’s 100th start for the Red Sox was a disaster, leading WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford to suggest the Dice-K mystery remains unsolved:
Is There Really A Dice-K Mystery?
In Matsuzaka's first real game, a start in Kansas City, he allowed just one run in seven innings, striking out 10 and walking one. He hit 95 mph on the gun, while getting Royals outfielder David DeJesus to say, "I saw lot of different stuff when I was up there. I don't know what to call them."
It would be one of the better games Matsuzaka has thrown. He never eclipsed the 10 strikeouts, reaching that total just two more times in his Red Sox career -- once 12 days later and again on Aug. 4 of that same season.
--snip--
At first it was just befuddling not knowing what to expect from Matsuzaka, but now, from the public's perspective, it has been simply annoying.
One hundred starts. No answers.
It's not what anybody signed up for.
That debut in Kansas City four years ago ... Yes, it was impressive. But the Royals had almost zero hitting that season, and Matsuzaka’s performance wasn’t that impressive. Because he pitched just seven innings, Dice-K’s Game Score was just 70, a figure he would top five times later in the season.
The story since then is pretty simple. Leaving aside the vagaries of luck, Matsuzaka simply hasn’t controlled the strike zone. In his rookie season, he posted a 2.51 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Since then it’s been 1.70, with identical 1.80 marks in both 2009 and ‘10. In 2008, when he finished fourth in the Cy Young balloting, Dice-K was incredibly lucky, giving up very few home runs and a .260 batting average on balls in play.
In 2007, Matsuzaka’s average fastball was 92 miles per hour; in 2010, his average fastball was 92 miles per hour. According to Baseball Info Solutions, he’s always thrown roughly the same percentage of primary pitches: around 55 percent fastballs, 20 percent sliders, and 15 percent cutters, with a few curves and change-ups mixed in.
Every season, Dice-K pitches some good games and some bad games. Every season, Dice-K has problems staying healthy enough pitch every fifth game. He is, according to the numbers at least, a mildly injury-prone pitcher who doesn’t throw particularly hard, and has to nibble around the strike zone to avoid getting hit hard.
He is, in other words, no better than many dozens of other pitchers in the major leagues right now. Really, the only mystery is why the Red Sox believed he was worth $103 million. Somebody should write a book.
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