Friday, April 06, 2007

10 Ks for Dice K*

Phew. Can you feel the collective sigh of relief from Red Sox nation today? Imagine if Dice K had gone out and laid an egg similar to that of Monsieur Schilling on Monday? Instead, we got the masterful performance that we expected from the phenom from Nippon! I know his first inning was a little rocky but hell, it was 30 degrees in KC yesterday. Have you ever tried to play catch in 30 degree weather never mind pitching 7 innings against a major league team?

Meanwhile, our friends the Yankees are saying, "thank God we went out and got Andy "four innings" Pettite instead of really joining the bidding war for Dice K. And thank goodness we got rid of that Randy Johnson guy and his 17 wins." Granted, RJ did struggle mightily at times last season and his ERA was 5.00. But seriously, the Yanks can't feel good right now.

Back to Dice K. 10 strike outs in his first game. Nothing sucks about that. And you know what, to all those skeptics that throw out the "but it was against the KC Royals, those guys are a AAA team at best" -- those same Royals were ranked 11th in the league with a .271 team batting average last year. Those guys don't lose games because they can't hit -- it's their pitching that sucks.

I don't know about you but I can't wait until next Wednesday to see the Dice Man pitch again in Beantown. Badda boom!

*I have to give credit to NPR for the title of this post.

3 comments:

Rooster said...

Manny's karate chop/bow to Dice in the dugout afterward was too damn funny ... What's so impressive to me is Dice K's supreme confidence and composure out there. Very Maddux-like ... It definitely softens the blow of Opening Day because there is no doubt that the staff officially has an ace.

Aaron_Strout said...

Matt -- I didn't actually see the chop/bow (and for that I'm pissed) but I did laugh my butt off when I read it in Sport Guys Matsuzaka Diary column today: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070405&sportCat=mlb

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to seeing the Sox in action on Sunday. (They'll be on TV for the first time down here in the A-TX)