Matsuzaka II

Last week Daisuke Matsuzaka had a solid outing against the Mexican National Team. I wrote up a simple scouting report on it. For the championship game I did the same thing. Even though he had a 95 pitch count to work with, Dai-san only went 4 innings. Shunsuke Watanabe was brought in after, and deservedly so.

No. of Pitches: 62
Fastballs: 37 (60%)
Sliders: 12
Splits: 10
Curves: 3

Like last time, it's very hard to differentiate between the slider and the curve. They are about the same on the radar gun, one is a hard downer, the other is a short slider. He mixed up his pitches a bit more than he did against Mexico, but he was still a primarily a fastball pitcher.

Fastballs: 37
92 MPH: 6 (16.2%)
93 MPH: 9 (24.3%)
94 MPH: 17 (45.8%)
95 MPH: 3 (8.1%)
96 MPH: 2 (5.4%)
Average: 93.6 MPH
Strikes: 27 (73.0%)
Balls: 10 (27.0%)
Swings at Strikes: 22 (81.5%)
Misses: 8 (36.4%)
Foul: 8 (36.4%)
In Play: 6 (27.3%)

Compared to the last outing, he had a little more velocity on his fastball. He hit 94 twice in that start, and sat there most of the day. He was typically at 93-94 with good command. He didn't have the same command he had last outing, but it was still well above average. He stayed up in the zone with his fastball most of the night, simply overpowering the Cuban hitters. 9 batters ended their AB against him on fastballs. 3 of them struck out. 3 hits 2 fly outs and a grounder. 3 of them were what I would define has a linedrive, not a bad rate considering they swung at 22 pitches. His fastball seemed to have an extra gear, just exploding to the plate. It certainly didn't look like a flat one, but it's hard to grade that stuff off a TV screen. I think the ratings I gave him last time are fair, and seem about right.

Velocity: 65
Movement: 40
Control: 65
Overall: 65

He had a lot more consistency on his sliders tonight. He threw them 81-84 MPH. He didn't strikeout a batter on one, and the HR to Eduardo Paret was on the slider. He only threw 4 hard curves, these had a little more downard movement than the sliders. They're so similar it could probably classified as the same pitch. Again, I think the ratings from last time are about right, although the slider was a little better.

Hard Slider
Movement: 55
Control: 50
Overall: 55

Hard Curve
Movement: 55
Control: 35
Overall: 45

They both have plus movement at times, but the consistency has not been there for either pitch. The splitter he threw today was excellent. It may have been a straight change but it had excellent movement and was a lot better than anticipated. He threw a hard one around 80 and a soft one, which was probably the forkball. The hitters were way out in front and had very good movement. Matsuzaka did not throw enough last game to let me grade the pitch, but I liked it.

Movement: 50
Control: 50
Overall: 50

He showed excellent control with the pitch and I don't think he uses it enough. He exclusively used his breaking pitches against righties, he did not throw any to lefties. He exclusively threw his splitters and changes to lefties, he didn't throw any righties. This is provided that my eyes don't suck. Most of this was expected. Daisuke Matsuzaka threw a very good fastball, with good breaking pitches that were inconsistent. He has 3 or 4 solid major league pitches. The only thing I'd like to see him do more is have consistency with his offspeed breaking pitches.

Stamina: 80
Pitchability: 65
Durability: 70

Again, no surprises there. He still reminds me a lot of Prior with the multiple hard breaking pitches and the command of an explosive 93-94 MPH fastball with good control on it. His final line was: 4.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 5 SO.