A Promising Sight

In contrast to an earlier piece, Roll the Dice, Dice-K impressed me with his performance against the Mets on Friday night, despite taking the L. The WBC, although I'm a fan, definitely played a part in his early season struggles/ineffectiveness/lack of shoulder strength. But now with his extended rest and work in the minors looked like the pitcher that I wanted to see when he came here from Japan.

The first thing that jumped out at me was his velocity. I'm not just talking his velocity from the first two games, but his velocity all las year was topping out at around 93. Friday night he topped out at 96 and seemed to really be able to let it go. Prior to his signing the reports were, a rubber arm, a power arm, and a lot of deception with his pitches. Personally I have not seen that, whether it be because of the organization protecting its investment or because of pressure I was finally not antsy while watching the Samurai throw.

The worst thing about Dice-K's outing wasn't that he took the loss its that his high-power offense had to hit against the 2nd (yes I said second) best pitcher in baseball. Your welcome Roy Halladay. He seemed to be the dominant presence on the mound that I expect for 100 million dollars. And if this is the Daisuke that we are going to see for the rest of the year, then I will retract everything that I wrote about him in my previous columns. *I'm gonna call this a column for the sake of tooting my own horn.*

Maybe I'm coming around on the whole Japanese movement or maybe it's the drunken comatose state I was in for about 6 hrs this weekend clouding my thinking...You decide. Either way...For his first start off of the DL and opposing the Best pitcher in the National League you have to like what he offered up there. For now I'll give him a pass on the loss for pleasing my needs of seeing some extra giddy-up on the fastball and not trying to entice hitters with 3-2 curveballs 6 inches outside the friggin plate...ugh.

Stay Tuned

Ryan