91% of the time, Dice-K has been terrific this year

Ahhh Daisuke Matsuzaka... you will always be interesting!

Once again, we get the ACE Dice-K and not the slapped around Dice-K.

This year I’ve already compared him to Derek Lowe and to the plot of the movie Mulholland Drive.

But in a way he is easier to figure out.
He’s usually DAMN good.

I know I had mentioned this already but let’s take a look at what is weighing down Dice-K. He has pitched some really terrific games like last night’s 8 innings of shutout ball in Cleveland or the near no hitter in Philadelphia.

And he has some lousy games that has ballooned his ERA.
But they are just a few disastrous innings and not really bad games.

Let’s look at his stats.
He’s 5-2 with an ERA of 4.59. In 49 innings he has let up 25 earned runs, 3 homers, 23 walks, 41 hits and 37 strikeouts.His WHIP is 1.31.

OK, now let’s look at his terrible innings.

May 1st, bottom of the 5th inning in Baltimore.

2/3 of an inning. 6 runs. 6 hits. 2 homers. 1 walk. Game winning runs scored in the inning.

May 6, top of 1st inning against the Angels.

1 inning. 4 runs. 2 hits. 3 walks.

May 17, bottom of the 1st in Yankee Stadium.

1 inning. 5 runs. 5 hits. 1 walk.

May 27, top of 5th against the Royals.

2/3 of an inning. 3 runs. 1 hit. 5 walks. Game winning runs scored in the inning.

June 2, top of 1st in Oakland.

1 inning, 3 runs, 4 hits, 1 homer.

Add those babies up and you have 4 1/3 innings, 21 runs, 20 hits, 9 walks and 3 homers.

Now let's do a bad inning-ectomy.

Without those 4 1/3 innings he would have 4 earned runs, 21 hits, 0 homers and 14 walks over 44 2/3 innings.

That would be an ERA of 0.80 and a WHIP of 0.78.

The league lead in ERA is 2.29 by David Price.

The league lead in WHIP is 0.92 by Cliff Lee.

Now granted, Dice-K wouldn't have enough innings to qualify (those 4 1/3 I took out weren't the tipping point) but he'd be having an eye popping season...

Oh yeah, his only two losses this year were as the result of 1 1/3 of those innings... so we might be looking at a perfect record as well.

Now of course he DID have those lousy innings, but is goes to show how quickly a reuptation can turn around. I am sure if you polled most Sox fans, they would be drunk right now.

But the sober ones would probably say that Dice-K was having a mediocre to poor season.

And yet in 91% of the innings he's thrown so far, Daisuke Matsuzaka has been an ace.

Avoid that big inning, Dice K! It will give us ALL a little less heartburn.