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POSTGAME: Matsuzaka a hit, on the mound and at the plate

BY JOE McDONALD
Journal Sports Writer

DENVER -- Don't try to tell Daisuke Matsuzaka that pitchers can't hit.

''I'm a confident hitter,'' he said after driving in two runs with a two-out, bases-loaded single that was the big blow in a six-run Red Sox outburst in the third inning. ''I love hitting.''

''He's a good hitter,'' Boston reliever Mike Timlin said of Dice-K. ''He's a good athlete. That (timely hit) was a good thing to see. It kind of took the wind out of (the Rockies') sails at that time.''

For the first five innings, Matsuzaka took the bats out of the Rockies' hands.

After giving up a leadoff single to his fellow countryman, and former teammate with the Seibu Lions in Japan, Kazuo Matsui, Dice-K didn't give up another hit until the fifth, when Colorado catcher Yovit Torrealba singled to start the inning.

Matsuzaka also was touched for another single in the fifth, by pinch-hitter Seth Smith, but didn't allow the Rockies to score.

He was lifted in the sixth when, with one out, he issued back-to-back walks to Todd Helton and Garrett Atkins, who later scored when Matsuzaka's successor, Javier Lopez, surrendered RBI singles to Brad Hawpe and Torrealba.

Dice-K left the game having given up three hits and two runs, both earned, in 5-1/3 innings, with five strikeouts and three walks. He received credit for the win, improving his postseason record to 2-1.

''The team won, and I didn't wind up being the one to stop our momentum, so, in that sense, I feel very relieved,'' he said, through an interpreter, in the post-game interview room.

''I felt that their lineup fought very well, and stayed in there. I did feel that I wasted some pitches in the sixth.''

Many times, sending a pitcher to the plate is a waste.

But not in Matsuzaka's case.

His base-hit was the first in a World Series by a Red Sox pitcher since Bill Lee, in Game Seven against the Cincinnati Reds in 1975 -- 32 years ago.

Posted by Jim Donaldson  at 1:54 AM | Permalink