$103 Million Dollar Pawsock?

When you see this sight in '09, it's probably the 5th inning.
(espn.com)

Before the season, I did my annual viewings of some of the Yahoo! fantasy baseball videos before arming my three teams with enough talent to make some deep runs. I clicked on the "Beware One-Year Wonder" video with Dice-K's picture on it, never good. In the video, Brad Evans just rips into Baseball's Houdini, crediting his 2008 season as more of a result of a baptism of luck rather than skillful wizardry. A drop-off is one thing, but the "rotten sushi" comment really emphasized where Evans was going with this. Immediately and very obviously, I got into defense mode, just passing off Dice-K's roller coaster method of pitching as his way of success. Yes he gave me a heart attack every time he went to the mound, and yes I wished he would get ahead of hitters, but you couldn't argue with the 18 wins, 2.90 ERA, and the .211 average against. On top of that, with the predicted beastly bullpen we were going to inherit, I predicted that we could be able to live with his 5-6 inning starts with the matchups we could produce out of the pen. But I had to be aware of a few veeeerrrrrry important statistics. For example, his 167 2/3 IP is the lowest obtained for a guy who had won as many games as the Dice Man. His 94 bases on balls weren't exactly world beating either, and his .267 average with balls in play put up a red flag. In short, he got away with everything but murder with his performance last year. But I wasn't going to question The National Treasure while I continued to question everyone else who doubted his success, until now. After being at last night's game at Fenway Park to watch him get booed, and after witnessing his whole disaster of a season post-WBC, there might be very few options with what to do with Dice-K, and they're not pretty. Whether it is to pull a Tigers/Dontrelle Willis and put him on the DL for some suspicious non-injury or to place him in Pawtucket, giving him a break from the rotation is the only way to solve this slippery downslide.

Somebody's gonna need some room up top.
(blog.syracuse.com)

Granted, I didn't expect for Dice-K to have another ERA in the high twos in '09, but I didn't expect this train wreck. As much as Bud Selig doesn't want to hear this, this most likely started in this year's World Baseball Classic. His performance in the tourney was brilliant (3-0, 2.45 ERA, 13 Ks, 5 BB in 14 2/3 innings) as he earned another MVP award for helping his native Japan win its 2nd title in as many Classics showcased. However, the Red Sox management, who are known to carefully build regimens for everyone in their staff, questioned the intense throwing program the Japanese squad was implementing early in the season. In the game against the United States, he threw a whopping total of 98 pitches, which definitely wouldn't be close to a total the Sox would have had him tally at any point in the Grapefruit League. We know that Japan takes the tourney more seriously than anybody in this country can imagine, but that probably didn't alleviate any of Sox's fears of the wear and tear. All those fears came true when Dice-K left his outing after a disastrous first inning in a game at Oakland, in if you also remember was the 1st gamecast on my blog, for arm fatigue. Even after his 1st win against Detroit, his approach or statistics haven't improved. Since that victory, he has posted a 9.88 ERA with a 2.20 WHIP in his last 3 starts while averaging 4.5 innings a start. That didn't improve in last night's debacle, which started poorly from the very first pitch with a shot off the bat of Nate McLouth. Also in the 1st inning, there was a period where he threw ten straight balls while walking in a run. And when he threw that magical strike, the fans roared like when Papi hit that first homerun a month back. It's almost sad when you're looking for a curtain call for a ball thrown over the plate. Is the problem still his arm? We saw Dice-K record no walks in a start against Texas, and he got battered. We saw him pitch in a run away game in Philly, and he made it close again. And recently, he just wasn't sharp from the get go against fellow countryman Kenshin Kawakami. This my friends, goes far beyond the physical. I believe the confidence tank is running low for Matsuzaka-san. It it was noticeable when he handed the ball off to Tito in the 5th inning, with his head hanging low in the midst of boos from the Fenway Faithful. He is very well aware that his time was running out to be a contributor in this year's starting rotation. With Smoltz and the anxious Buchholz waiting in the wings at Triple AAA, there was little room for error, and last night he may have used all of it up.

Will he meet his idol with a "P" or "B" cap?
(cache.daylife.com)

So unfortunately, it looks like Dice-K will receive a demotion to Pawtucket sooner than later, with Brad Penny possibly calling off a few U-Hauls. Junichi Tazawa will probably be uber-excited to pitch with his idol on the same team, but will probably be weirded out by the unexpected time and place. Honestly, I am sad about this. In his tenure with the Red Sox, he seems to carry himself with a quiet dignity and seems very engaging when he interacts with media. You never hear any of the diva stories from him that we hear about other superstars. The image is a far cry from a guy who achieved mega-stardom in his home country. But it seems as if the weight of two nations has squashed the confidence of the Japanese phenom. But to me, it doesn't bring to question so much the Dice-K situation, but as to how we develop Japanese pitchers. We hear the differences all the time with the American and Japanese professional leagues. The ball is apparently smaller in Japan, which allows for better management of pitches. Dice-K has also been quoted as saying that the MLB hitters have more natural power than those of Japan (explain why he nibbles), who typically produce line drive hitters like Ichiro. Even with all the money and hype invested in this guy and with everything we know about the two leagues, why didn't he start off with stint in the minors? Maybe the Sox didn't have another quality arm in the rotation ready when the 2007 season started, or maybe it was the demands from the devil...I mean Scott Boras that prevented an action such as this, but even a little time in the lower leagues may have prepared him better for the challenge to come. The time there would give pitchers like Daisuke and Tazawa, the time to get use to all the intricate details of the American game as well as to create a measuring stick of performance and confidence. Even with Nomo's early success, he found it difficult to maintain that success as hitters from both the American and National Leagues made adjustments to his unconventional delivery as time passed. Let's not forget the crash-and-burn jobs of Kei Igawa and Hideki Irabu. I know and believe that the best Japanese players can compete with anybody as shown by the multitude of international tourneys over the years. But as we learn in with any country in baseball, talent is only useful if it's developed properly. Something to bring to mind when Yu Darvish creates the next posting fee bonanza. So I truly hope the Red Sox organization can salvage this national treasure, before he becomes lost in the sea of mediocrity.

Bonus: Sox-Braves Montage

"The Boys of Summer" - The Ataris - So Long, Astoria, 2003