Since Matt is currently in the air over the Pacific, I’ll hold down the blog for him. Apologies in advance for not being nearly as funny as him.

The Blue Jays radio guy mentioned early on that he thinks Dice-K is a Cy Young candidate. The numbers may be there, but if you regularly watch this guy pitch, I don’t see how you can have any faith in his ability. He seems to need the bases loaded before he can focus. If we can’t put cardboard cutouts on each base to distract him, maybe we can just convince him to pitch out of the stretch? 

It must be a problem with the pelvic thrust. It’s much more noticeable in person than on TV, but whenever Dice-K is pitching from the windup, he rocks back and forth and does a little hip thrust. Maybe that extra motion is what causes his lack of control?

Today wasn’t a typical Matsuzaka start, though, what with 8 hits, 5 runs, and only one walk (and that one intentional). I had to double check that Dice-K didn’t sneak into a Blue Jays uniform when Burnett gave up back-to-back walks in the third. Of course since those walks immediately come around and scored, it couldn’t have been Matsuzaka pitching.

Finally, congrats to Stanford boy Jed Lowrie for the winning home run. I remember watching him play second for the Cardinal during my first year on the Farm, and it’s great to see him do so well for the Sox. And its always fun to have the college 2B playing SS and the college SS playing 2B. Of course, Tito has to mess it up by playing Lowrie at third with Cora at short. Why, I have no idea. Isn’t this what we got Sean Casey for, to back up first and let Youks play third if necessary?  Last I checked, Casey’s .831 OPS is better than Cora’s .768. What did Sean Casey do to Tito?