Dice-K

So now everyone knows what the K in Dice-K stands for. Earlier today, for his first outing of the season: ten Ks, and a single walk. I like that ratio. Particularly because Dice-K had struggled a bit with control in his last two spring-training outings. He wasn’t allowing many hits, but he gave a few too many free passes. Not so today. Beyond the Ks, the box looked real nice overall :one earned run over seven innings. This on the heels of a nice start by Josh Beckett yesterday. Two young arms, two consecutive games where the Sox allow only a single run. How often did the Sox hold their opposition to a single run last year? In the AL East especially, it’s going to be pitching that makes the difference, because there are plenty of big bats in all of the lineups.

Still, I remember that Beckett and Schill started great last year, allowing Papelbon to save a bunch of low scoring games in the springtime of the season, before everyone wilted in the heat of summer. In July and August, we had a stretch of almost twenty consecutive games where the pitchers surrendered five or more runs. We won a bunch of those by outslugging the opposition, but eventually we began losing more than we won, and the season came to an early and disappointing end. The lesson being that two good starts don’t get us into the post-season; there are another 159 games to be played.

For now, however, how hot is that ticket to next week’s Mariners’series, when Dice-K will begin his Fenway career by pitching to Ichiro? And how many TVs in Japan will be tuned in live, regardless of the hour? I think I need to buy another bottle of Suntori.