Mariners 3, Sox 0
WP: Hernandez (2-0)
LP: Matsuzaka (1-1)
Sox box
SUMMARY:
The eyes of the world fell upon Fenway Park last night as two nations eagerly awaited the home debut of one of the most talked-about pitchers on the planet, Daisuke Matsuzaka. But when it was all over a 21-year-old Venezuelan named Felix Hernandez stole the show by tossing a 1-hit, complete game shutout against the Sox; "King" Felix allowed only 3 baserunners all night and silenced the raucous Boston crown in a game that took an NL-like 2:20 to complete.
HERO: Hernandez 9IP, 1H, 0R, 2BB, 6Ks
The kid who just turned 21 April 8th tossed his second straight gem, following his Opening Day 12-K shutout masterpiece over Oakland. For an encore all he did was take a no-hitter into the 8th at Fenway and walk away with a complete game shutout against a lineup that had scored 14 runs the day before.
GOAT(s): Boston lineup
The same 9 guys who slammed Seattle for 14 runs on 14 hits on Tuesday afternoon was completely shut down, and shut out, the next day. I know Hernandez was lights out, but almost being no-hit in your own crib on such a huge night was embarrassing.
REVIEW:
The most anticipated home debut in recent Red Sox history began amid international fanfare and a flurry of blinding flashbulbs, but ultimately ended in disappointment and defeat for Boston.
The much-ballyhooed first Fenway performance of Dice-K had a playoff feel to it despite the fact that it was just the 8th game of the season, but it was a young hurler for the Mariners who ended up stealing the spotlight from his heavily-hyped counterpart. Felix Hernandez, who had been an unremarkable 16-18 with an ERA of 4.50 coming into this year in two seasons with the Mariners, turned the talk away from Dice-K for now after his second consecutive dominant outing.
It wasn't as if Dice pitched poorly- 7IP, 8H, 3ER, 1BB, 4Ks- but he was not his usual super-sharp self. Howeva, when your teammates get no hits or runs for you while you're pitching, it doesn't really matter what the pitcher does.
The game started out well enough for Matsuzaka and Boston. With enough cameras and Japanese people in the park to make Fenway feel like Little Kyoto, Dice-K came out and squared off against his countryman and fellow Japanese League alum Ichiro. As the flashbulbs flickered with an almost surreal intensity, Matsuzaka's first pitch to the Seattle centerfielder was a curveball for a strike (evidently in Japanese culture it's not very gentlemanly to throw anything but a fastball in that situation, yet evidently Dice-K didn't care.)
Five pitches later Ichiro grounded out, appropriately to Matsuzaka, and the hype was over and the game underway.
Unfortunately that would be about as good as it would get for Boston. After escaping the 1st inning unscathed, Dice was touched up for 2 hits and a run in the 2nd, but he gave the hitters a chance to catch up by holding it at 1-0 until the 5th. That's when Seattle "blew the game open" by scoring two runs courtesy of 2 singles, a double and a Boston error. With Boston batters doing nothing but giving the Mariners infield practice, those three runs might as well have been 13.
As Dice-K was struggling a bit with his control Hernandez was quietly putting together another awe-inducing performance. Not only were the Sox hitters struggling to get on base, Youk's flyout to left leading off the 7th was the first ball Boston hit out of the infield all night!
The only positive for the Sox came in the 8th inning, when new fan favorite J.D.Drew led off the frame with a bounding single up the middle to break up the no-hit bid. The game and atmosphere at that time was eerily reminiscent of the last near no-hitter thrown in Fenway, Sept 2, 2001, when the Stank's Mike Mooseina's attempt was broken up by Jurassic Carl Everett leading off the 9th.
Matsuzaka was lifted after the 7th and had nothing to be ashamed of. He threw 103 pitches, 68 for strikes, and on any other night would have probably picked up a victory. But it was that kind of night for the hometown team as they just happened to run into a buzzsaw on the mound. In two starts this season Hernandez' linescore reads like this: 17IP, 4H, 0R, 4BB, 18K. That's what you call impressive my friends, and Hernandez made sure that although the word-wide stage was set up for Dice-K, he was going to make sure some people noticed him, too. And when you've got a 100mph fastball and an 87mph slider, people are going to notice.
In the end the home debut of Dice-K will go down as an extremely memorable one.
But for all the wrong reasons.
NOTES & QUOTES:
-Seattle catcher Kenji Johjima had faced Dice extensively in japan and came in with a career .271 average (32-118, 5HRs) against him; he doubled twice in 4 at bats tonight
-there were 179 press credentials issued to members of the Asian media
-Ichiro finished 0-4 against his old nemesis with one strikeout and is now 0-8 with 4 Ks in the series
-Drew is the only player to hit safely in all 8 games, and needless to say he is leading the team in batting at .393 (11-28)
"...because of how well the opposing pitcher pitched today, I felt I had to hold them to as few runs as possible, and I wasn’t able to do that today."- Matsuzaka after the game
Read more about the big night at Fenway here, here and some brash comments by Jose Guillen here.
RECORD: 4-4
GB: -1
UP NEXT: Seattle, WED 4PM
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