Dispatching Falsehood And Cowardice

Daisuke Matsuzaka may have allowed four runs yesterday, but baseball columnists are not backing off in their praise. The Globe's Bob Ryan:

Daisuke is the pitching master! His Ultimate Galactic Dragon Gyroball Pitch Power Explosion breaks three feet inside before cutting sharply toward the dugout, where falsehood and cowardice are forced to shrink before it!

Peter Gammons:

Sources say [he] descended into the Underworld to spit in the flaming eye of the Lord of Hell and steal the secret power of the Onikaze, or 'demon-storm' pitch, which tails away nicely from both lefties and righties.

From the man himself:

In the American League East, every team has a very strong batting order, and I'm aware of it. This being a team in our same division that we're going to face many times, I thought I'd take the opportunity to experiment [with the strike zone] a little bit. ... Judging from what I experienced, throwing high fastballs and high sliders can tend to be a little bit dangerous. ... I was hoping I could face a lot of the everyday players. When I saw the lineup card, I was very excited.

Starters Brian Roberts, Melvin Mora, Miguel Tejada and Jay Gibbons went a combined 1-for-8 with three strikeouts. Mora fanned twice:

He's not from this planet. He's coming from somewhere else. He's awesome. Nasty. Fastball is nasty. Breaking pitch, nasty. Splitter, nasty. Everything, good. ... I think I know everything he has now. But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hit it.

Jason Dubois, on Dice's windup:

You don't see that much in the states. It's funky and it takes some getting used to. If you're not careful, you might drop your hands a little too quick and then you'll hit a lot of fly balls, swing under the ball ...

Matsuzaka faces the Dodgers on Friday.

Jon Lester pitched two innings (37 pitches, 20 strikes) in a simulated game. He'll pitch in a minor league game on Friday.

It's not a matter of patience, it's a matter of what I can and can't do right now. There's no way I can go out there and pitch against big-league hitters right now. ... The goal is to get to four to five innings [per outing] by the end of camp.

Manny Ramirez had two hits and a walk yesterday and has reached base in nine of his last 11 PA -- four hits, four walks, one HBP. He's hitting .364. Does anyone know is that lazy bum going to start trying?

Tonight at 7 PM: Carl Pavano v. Tim Wakefield. ... Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez will not make the trip to Fort Myers. Francona plans to start everyone in the regular lineup except Jason Varitek. The first regular season battle is April 20.