begin a daily look at each position on the club, from the projected
starters to their backups. Our latest installment continues to examine
the starting rotation.
The Mystery Man: There was a lull in the Red Sox clubhouse at City of Palms Park on Monday, with several players out taking their cuts or grabbing a pregame meal. Somewhere on the complex was Daisuke Matsuzaka, who had just thrown 25 pitches in a bullpen session.
Word spread that Matsuzaka would address the media on the session and how his strained neck responded to it and slowly a group of reporters began to gather.
One was heard to say “The Daisuke saga continues,” with just the right amount of sarcasm.
Sure enough, Matsuzaka’s career with the Red Sox has been rather epic, with massive highs, frustrating lows and long stretches such as the one this March in which it’s hard to tell what the club really has.
Is he the guy who splashed on the scene in 2007 as the man of a million pitches, or the one who struggled to get many of those pitches over the plate that year and again in 2008, when he led the league in walks? Is he the 18-3 pitcher of two years ago or the one who wore down after giving all for his country in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, going 4-6 with a 5.76 ERA for the Sox last year?
During his difficult 2009 campaign, many wondered if Matsuzaka was even someone the Sox could count on to stick with the team’s plans; he was sent to Fort Myers last year for being way out of shape and reportedly hid a groin injury from the club before hinting that Boston’s training plans had hampered his progress.
So here he was halfway through March discussing a pain in the neck that had everyone waiting to see what was next.
At the very least, Matsuzaka is beginning to show some frustration.
“I finally felt that my back issue was getting better and now to go through this with my neck right now, [the spring] is sort of moving along in stops and starts, and it’s been a bit stressful.”
With the setbacks this spring it is becoming almost certain that Matsuzaka will not open the season in the rotation, “ceding” the last two spots to Clay Buchholz and Tim Wakefield. If and when he is good to go, the debate over who gets what role can be reborn.
In Matsuzaka, the Sox have a guy who is known to nibble to be effective, not exactly the best recipe for a pitcher. But he also gets strikeouts in droves and has always shown an almost uncanny ability to wiggle out of jams, which sounds like a delightful skill set to have in someone coming out of the bullpen.
However, do the Sox want a 29-year-old they paid over $103 million to sign to be coming out of the pen? Not likely, and that’s why the next few weeks are critical in the Red Sox career of Matsuzaka. At some point soon, he will have to show the team who he really is.
Other options: The alternatives are already in place and have been widely reported. Buchholz and Wakefield have both had smooth, uninterrupted springs and the Sox can do a lot worse than those two to round out a rotation.
If all else fails: Buchholz has been the one rumored as trade bait thus far, due to his contract and age, but if the Sox found a taker for Matsuzaka they would free themselves of $20 million over 2011 and 2012 and perhaps find a safer bet.
