I watched the Seattle-Boston game in its entirety earlier, and have to say that I was very impressed by the pitching of …. Felix Hernandez! This kid (just turned 21 on Sunday) has been hyped by the Mariners’ organization for 2 years now, but I never saw him turn in a dominant performance until this game. I can finally see why the M’s are so high on him. Hopefully he can pitch like this for the whole year.
On the other hand, Matsuzaka looked like an average No.3 starter. He went 7 innings and gave up 8 hits along with three earned runs while striking out four and walking one. Daisuke didn’t yield a hit to Ichiro, but Kenji Jojima lined two doubles off him.
I was watching the international broadcast from Japan — the first time I’ve heard American announcers call a Matsuzaka game. Wow, I was going crazy over the pronunciation of his name. Drove me up the wall. It’s not Matt-su-zaka, it’s Maht-su-zaka. (Actually, it’s Ma-tsu-za-ka.) That freakin’ nickname of his doesn’t help, either, because it leads people to think that his first name consists of just two syllables. It doesn’t. It’s Da-i-su-ke. The third and fourth are blended in this particular case, but still. It works out to Da-i-skay. Saying Dice-K puts the accent in the wrong place and makes me nuts. Am I nitpicking? Uh huh.
(AP/Chitose Suzuki photo)