You forgot about that, didn’t you? You completely erased
Dice-K’s 2008 season from your memories. But, that’s too bad. Maddening
Matsuzaka went 18-3 that year. That’s pretty impressive.
Or is it? Basically, this season is the perfect analogy for
who Dice-K is as a pitcher. Yes, he got 18 wins. But, we all know that wins
mean very little when it comes to pitching ability. What about some other
numbers? He had a 2.90 ERA that year, third in the league. But, he only threw
167.2 innings. He led the league by holding batters to a .211 average. But, he
walked a league leading 94 batters. He didn’t give up a hit all year with the
bases loaded. But, he loaded the bases fourteen times that year. What did all
that mean?
I’ve always thought that Dice-K was very honest with himself
when it came to facing batters. He knew which hitters he could get out, and
which ones he couldn’t. He didn’t mind base runners. He knew that having people
on base didn’t matter in the least if he struck out the next guy to end the
inning. It looked like he knew that there were three or four guys in every
line-up he knew he’d have trouble with. He also knew there were three or four
guys he had no problem with. So, like any decent pitcher, he would pitch
carefully to those he had trouble with so he could attack those he didn’t. So
what if you walk three guys to load the bases if the next three strike out? It
was like every batter he faced was either Manny Ramirez, or Jose Iglesias. Any
pitcher would pitch carefully to Manny. Don’t give him a pitch to hit. If he
makes an out hitting a bad pitch, great. If he takes the walk, that’s fine too.
If Manny was followed by Iglesias in the line-up every day, Manny would be
walked plenty of times by every pitcher. That was Dice-K.
Now, he ended up throwing plenty of pitches doing that.
Which is why he only threw the 167 innings. But, did that come from the
American way of handling him? Looking at his numbers in Japan, he certainly
walked his fair share, and threw plenty of pitches. Remember the legendary high
school game where he threw 250 pitches? Even in 17 innings, that’s a ton of
pitches. Nobody worried about that then.
So, wrap that all together and what do you get? 18 wins for
the Sox during the season. It may have been annoying to watch. But, was it all
done with a plan?
18 is for 18 wins from Daisuke Matsuzaka in 2008.
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