Thursday, April 17, 2014

Dice-K Returns To Majors With Metropolitans

(David Becker/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
With the recent success of Japanese starting pitchers like Yu Darvish, Masahiro Tanaka and Hisashi Iwakuma, it's interesting to note the return of another to the bigs. Daisuke Matsuzaka has been recalled from AAA Las Vegas by the New York Metropolitans. Does this tell us more about Dice-K (2.25 ERA at AAA) or the woeful state of the Mets pitching staff? Likely the latter. Last year, Matsuzaka did perform fairly well for New York (3-3, 4.42 ERA), but it remains to be seen if he can truly contribute anything more than excruciatingly slow deliveries and 100-plus pitch counts by the fifth.