Game 34: Matsuzaka rolls dice vs Tigers and wins

Red Sox 6
Tigers 3

Daisuke Matsuzaka dares you to score on him... he'll even help you out with a few walks... or eight...

Facing one of the scariest lineup in the league last night, Dice-K chose to nibble at the strike zone for 5 innings, rather than challenge the likes of Maglio Ordonez, Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Gullien.

It took 109 pitches and 8 walks, but when Matsauzaka handed the ball over to the bullpen, he had given up just 2 hots and 1 run and was set to win his 5 game with a 4-1 lead.

The bullpen would do their job and secure the victory, but Diasuke's "nibbling" is eventually going to hurt the bullpenand the team. After starting the 2008 season with a more aggressive approach, Matsuzaka has fallen back into his old routine - resulting in average of 5.7 IPs per outing. In the April 1st start against the A's and the April 89th start against the Tigers, Matsuazaka used the fastball often and stayed ahead of the batters. The result: 16 Ks and 6 2/3 IPs in each game.

Since then he's never fanned more than 4 batters in a game and he's barely made it into the 6th innning in three of his last four starts - See Game Log.

Lucky for Daisuke, the Red Sox offense keeps on rolling. Mike Lowell had a big game, hitting his first home run on 2008 and Ortiz and Youkilis each hit homers as well.

Bottom Line: The Sox won their 4th in a row. Dice-K won his 5th game without a loss. But the Sox will likely be without Okajima, Papelbon and Hansen tonight, which means the Tigers will get a look at the struggling Timlin, Delcarmen and Lopez if Wake gets beat up early...

BTW - Wake is 2-3 with a 5.08 ERA at Comerica Park and once gave up 6 homers in one game there... although he did get the 11-9 win.

BL Hero: Mike Lowell appears to be back on track. He went 3-5 with a HR, 2 RBI and 2 runs scored, and would have had his 2nd ding-dong of 2008 if Comerica wasn't the size of Texas...

Photo: Yahoo!

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