The Future Looks Dark for Daisuke

I've seen him on a number of occasion late in the game (usually after watching a 'Stars' game), and Higashio-kantoku didn't head the warnings of fatigue.

At first I thought that Higashi-kantoku wanted Matsuzaka to pitch the most complete games ever. But something I noticed often was that it's the games that are tied or Matsuzaka is down by a run or two that he stays in there the longest. Higashio-kantoku seemed to want Matsuzaka to get the win at all costs, even though it seems that the Lions don't hit when Matsuzaka throws well.

Look at Matsuzaka's ERA. It's 3.60, good for 3rd place out of the 13 pitchers who qualify for a title (i.e. have pitched at least 140 innings). Minchey leads the league with a 3.26 ERA. The league ERA is somewhere close to 4.35, so I'd say that he'd really done better than those 15 losses suggest. And having watched the end of a number of his complete games, I'd blame a great deal of those losses on the Lions' offense not producing when Matsuzaka was on the mound.

Nonetheless, you don't have to go back in time very far to see examples of Matsuzaka being left in too long. Take that "M1" game against Kintetsu last week. Matsuzaka had a good lead going into the bottom of the 9th. It was time for Toyoda (5-3, 28S, 2.83), who even Higashio-kantoku credited as being a reliable closer, going to him often when Hsu (11-6, 3.47) and Nishiyama (14-9, 4.35) were winning in the late innings. But, no. Higashio-kantoku wanted to leave the kid in there. And what did the first batter do? Hit a home run on a high pitch, a sign of fatigue. I think that was Matsuzaka's 146th pitch of the game. While Matsuzaka did strike out Rhodes after working the count full, on his 164th (or so) pitch, he then gave up the sayonara gyakuten home run to Nori for the loss.

Had Toyoda's fresh arm come in after that first home run, things might have been a little different. And Seibu might have still had hope a little longer.

I think in that case, the reason that Higashio left Matsuzaka in was so that the match up of the boy monster vs. Rhodes and Nakamura could go down in history as one of the great shobus of all time. I don't necessarily agree with him, but I think that Higashio-kantoku was often led by what he thought the fans wanted to see. And he thought they wanted to see Matsuzaka throw until he couldn't throw any more.

Matsuzaka's team mate Cabrera, while disapointed by the loss, felt that having Matsuzaka challenge Rhodes and Nakamura was for the best. He wished that he had been given the same chance on a number of occasions.

> I think in that case, the reason that Higashio left
> Matsuzaka in was so that the match up of the boy
> monster vs. Rhodes and Nakamura could go down in
> history as one of the great shobus of all
> time. I don't necessarily agree with him, but I
> think that Higashio-kantoku was often led by what he
> thought the fans wanted to see. And he thought they
> wanted to see Matsuzaka throw until he couldn't throw
> any more.

I agree. I felt this was the same kind of thing during the Olympics, when Ogataki seemed to leave Daisuke in much too long. But those games were close and had the Nippon offense woken up just a bit, Daisuke could have won all those games he pitched in Sydney.

OTOH, drama is fine and good, and I'd certainly enjoy seeing Daisuke pitch live. But I would hope that his coaches and managers would think to take care of him, as well. He does get one more day rest, on average, than major leaguers do, so perhaps it's not as bad as it looks. And, you're right, his low ERA is a good sign. Perhaps this was the year Daisuke learned how to pitch when he doesn't have his best stuff.

> Matsuzaka's team mate Cabrera, while disapointed by
> the loss, felt that having Matsuzaka challenge Rhodes
> and Nakamura was for the best. He wished that he had
> been given the same chance on a number of occasions.

I agree with this also. I wasn't the least bit surprised that Matsuzaka gave up the historic 55th homer. For one, he has a knack for giving up milestones (remember Ichiro's 100th?). I remember reading an article where the author once said that Daisuke would never intentionally walk a batter to prevent him from winning a title or a record. At the time, I wondered if that would be true. Certainly I think he has proved that it is.

>[...] And, you're right, his low ERA is a good
> sign. Perhaps this was the year Daisuke learned how
> to pitch when he doesn't have his best stuff.

Table 1. Matsuzaka's HR/Inning Ratio

Year	HRs	Inn	HR/Inn
1999	14	180	0.0778 (12.9)
2000	12	167 2/3	0.0716 (14.0)
2001	27	240 1/3	0.1123 (9.0)

I would agree to that if it weren't for the large number of home runs he'd given up this year. Home runs per inning stack up as shown in Table 1.

That's a home run every 9 innings, or one a game. His previous two years were much better, allowing a long ball every 13-14 innings.

So, yes, he has learned how to use other pitches when he's late in a game. That's keeping his ERA down. But he's also serving up some jucier pitches as well.

It would be interesting to see if his home runs allowed is in sync with the increase in home runs league wide. Does somebody have time to study that one?

Looking at that table, I think that it'd be better represented as HRs per 9 Innings:

1999: 0.70 per 9 innings
2000: 0.64 per 9 innings
2001: 1.01 per 9 innings

Ah, yes. That looks like a much more usable set of numbers.

I don't think Higashio has anything against Matsuzaka.
I think Higashio is just going against the trend of Japanese pitchers of the 90s and 2000s who can only go up to 170-180 innings. I just think that Higashio wants to believe that Matsuzaka is kind of a tough "old school" type pitcher who can carry the team all by himself. Who can go 15-15 or 20-15 or 26-10 etc. He is not asking Daisuke to be like the legendary Lions Inao, but he wants Matsuzaka to be like Osamu Higashio of the 70s.