Daisuke Completely Tames Tigers

Daisuke Matsuzaka was on last night. His cutter and split finger fastball were effective and his control was precise. Even the manager of the Tigers, Jim Leyland, was impressed. After the game he said this.......

"I was very impressed with him," Leyland said, a day after profanely dismissing the impending matchup with Matsuzaka. "He had composure and he had good stuff. He knows what to do with it. He's the real deal. He's good."

"He's good" might be an understatement, at least last night. As Steve Buckley of the Herald wrote this very morning.....

"......he’s looking more and more like an old baseball soldier, wise to the ways of big league hardball, clued in to each batter’s likes and dislikes, his strengths, his weaknesses.
Put another way, the work in progress is becoming poetry in motion. He was so smooth in pitching the Red Sox to their 7-1 victory against the Detroit Tigers last night at Fenway Park that by the middle innings, the masses knew, just knew, the Dice Man would be going the distance."

Steve, poetry in motion...perfect words! Yes, WE KNEW! The Red Sox are right now a scary good team. We have to hope they remain healthy. Every hitter in the lineup had 2 hits except for Manny, who had 1, and JD Drew, who was held hitless. Balanced power was in evidence last night, top to bottom. But the star was on the mound, inducing ground ball out after ground ball out. And once the Sox tacked on 4 runs in the 8th inning, the fun was about to begin. As Daisuke came out to pitch the 9th, the crowd rose as one. And they weren't going to take their seats until their pitcher, our pitcher, finished his night. And the Tigers.
Tonight it's the hot Timmy Wakefield versus the always tough Justin Verlander. Gametime is 7pm at the Fens. And in a related piece of good news, Josh Beckett is said to be healing nicely, but he will miss one start, maybe more. Click on the title of this post for more on him and his finger. It hints at a possible stint on the DL. So don't forget to click.