The Red Sox home opener played out beautifully on Tuesday. Josh Beckett was brilliant and the offense came alive, scoring a pair of touchdowns. The offensive outburst allowed Francona to use the bench and give all the positional players some face time before the crowd.
Yesterday’s pitching matchup of Daisuke Matsuzaka versus Felix Hernandez was as tantalizing as they come in mid-April. Both pitchers played well last night. Matsuzaka pitched well enough to win on most nights. I’ll take 7 innings and 3 earned runs from any starter, any day of the week (and twice on Sunday).
I felt that Matsuzaka didn’t have his best stuff last night; his offspeed pitches didn’t have as much movement as some previous outings. He still managed to pitch a very solid game. I think that his effort last night bodes well for the rest of the season. When he’s on he can dominate and when he’s off he can still keep teams at bay.
I’m not being a homer when I say this, but I felt that Hernandez had a bigger strike zone than Matsuzaka last night. Hernandez seemed to get many calls on the edges of the plate and the upper part of the strike zone. He threw a high curveball that was clearly above the letters to Pedroia that was called a strike. Matsuzaka didn’t get favorable calls when he could have put hitters away with pitches on the corners. His strike zone definitely seemed smaller.
Regardless of the strike zone inconsistencies, “Felix the King” pitched a brilliant game last night. I don’t know if this kid has completely turned the corner or not, but he has been outstanding so far this year. The two leading contenders for the Cy Young right now are Hernandez and Beckett. It’s early in the season so I’d be surprised if both players were still the leading contenders in September. I hope that Becket remains on the list.
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