Dice K Pitches, Finally. SOX WIN!

The Boston Red Sox defeated the Florida Marlins by a score of 6-4 yesterday in a game that marked the return of Daisuke Matsuzaka. He is still a few weeks away from being completely ready and yesterday he was throwing at about 65%. But he has no pain and no worries. He can tell you that himself...

"If that was 100 percent, I'd be in trouble," he said. "But really with today being my first game I was thinking about how to approach it and I think the most important thing for me was to get into that game mindset and facing an opposing team and facing the live hitters out there today. At this point I want to rejoin the rotation as quickly as possible,” said Matsuzaka. “Training with that goal is the only thing on my mind . . . so I’m not feeling any stress right now.”

Tim Wakefield started the game and was able to go six innings, giving up six hits and three runs. All of the runs were surrendered in the first inning. Timmy said that he ran out of energy a bit in the sixth but that's exactly what spring training is for. Matsuzaka pitched the seventh and eighth, giving up an immediate run before settling down nicely. Let's just hope the soap opera shenanigins are over. Period. By the way, we STILL have a six into five pitching rotation situation. Who will be left out? I don't know but I do know this...Josh Beckett will pitch the season opener against the Yankees. Go Josh. Go Red Sox. Here's Timmy on the six into five situation and the status of his starting job......

“I’m very curious, not knowing,” Wakefield said. “Normally I kind of know what’s going on. They have some decisions to make and we’ll see what happens.”

Terry Francona, the Red Sox skipper, added this...

“We haven’t laid out the starters. We just don’t know," he said. "When we announce something, I want our guys to know and understand why and we just don’t know yet.”

The one thing I know is that Beckett will pitch against the pinstripers in the 2010 season opener followed by Lester and Lackey. Righty, lefty, righty. After that, well, we'll find out. The good thing is that everybody is healthy, including Dustin Pedroia and his wrist. What could have been a calamity turned into something MUCH less serious for Pedey.

That's a wrap for this Friday, March 26th. I hope you have a great day. Click on this post's title for all the Boston Red Sox news and as always, BE WELL. Thanks go out to you, the remaining few, for being here. See ya. Oh, I'll be back tomorrow morning, if not sooner.