Matsuzaka Mania

It's 3am in Japan and everyone man, woman and child is watching a phenom pitch his first major league ball game, halfway across the world.

Daisuke Matsuzaka made his regular season debut for the Boston Red Sox Thursday in what turned out to be a seven inning, six hit, one run, one walk, 10 strikeout win over the Kansas City Royals. Not bad for starters.

"Up to now," Matsuzaka said, "given all the expectations that have surrounded me, I felt happy about those expectations at the same time feeling that, perhaps, they were a little bit extreme."

Really? I hadn't noticed any hype.

A question still remains: Does the gyroball exist? I say no, only because Peter Gammons and Tim Kurkjian (whose opinions are about the only ones I care about at the WWL) say no. But you know who people should really ask? Scouts. They know everything.

And ask, they did. The consensus between scouts behind the plate yesterday was seven pitches: a straight four-seam fastball that tops out at 95 mph, a sinking two-seam fastball that sits at 91, a cut fastball that jumps in on leftys around 91, a curveball that spins slowly at 72 or tight at 78, an everyday changeup at 80, a power slider at 86 and a shuuto (often mistaken for a gyroball), the Japanese pitch that sinks like a screwball, at 81.

Art Stewart, the Royals scout beginning his 55th year in baseball said, "Kid's got moxie. He's got something, all right." Moxie? Chalk that up to the cutest old man-quote ever. Also, the most elusive... still no evidence of a gyroball.

Oh yeah, the Red Sox won this one, 4-1.

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