When Will They Stop Talking About This Guy?

I've come to the reality, after just two games, that those in the sporting world (led by ESPN) will never stop talking about Daisuke Matsuzaka. Never. I watched SportsCenter this morning and his highlights from last night's Red Sox/Mariners led off. It was all highlights about Daisuke and then one little blip of Felix Hernandez (the Mariners' starter that opposed him) at the end of the highlights. You figure Daisuke dominated, right? Boston surely must have won the game, right? Nope. King Felix threw a 1-hit, no run, two-walk gem of a shutout and it barely got a peep on SportsCenter. And Seattle won 3-0. Baseball Tonight talked about it some because that show is specifically baseball highlights. But for the most part all the talk was about Daisuke and his Red Sox home debut.

The thing that makes this all so odd is that it is the great Felix Hernandez who will have a bigger impact on baseball as a whole than Matsuzaka will. Daisuke is great (at least through two starts) but the guy is already 26 and will turn 27 in September. Good age for a pitcher, but not young enough to make any kind of impact on any of the hallowed records. I'll already rule out 300 wins for Daisuke (since he has 1 MLB win right now), he could get to 3,000 strikeouts but that would take a whole bunch of impressive seasons. Hall of Famer? You would think he already is one with how they talk about him. We have yet to see what will happen with great Japanese imports and the Hall of Fame. The jury will be out until Ichiro Suzuki retires. I think Ichiro should be in the Hall, I could see Daisuke following.

But as for King Felix, he just turned 21. That is no misprint. He turned 21 on April 8, making him roughly five moths younger than I am. He throws 92 mph. On his slider. 100 on his fastball. 86 with some disgusting break on his curveball. As my friend and I were watching the game last night we were wondering how it is possible to hit a ball coming out of King Felix's hand. We quickly determined that you just have to get lucky. My approach would be to go up there and just stand there, hoping for a walk. Hernandez had a rocky first season last year (12-14 with a 4.52 ERA) but for a 20 year-old that seems OK. Early on this season he seems to have harnessed his control issues and more importantly, the Mariners gave him his slider back. They refused to let him throw it last year for fear of him hurting his arm. After seeing it for the first time last night I have determined it is the single filthiest pitch in baseball. Anyway, that 12-14 mark seems to be distant history considering that Hernandez has not allowed a run in his first two starts this year (a total of 17 innings). Hell, he's only allowed four hits and four walks.

And yet, they continue to talk about Daisuke. Daisuke has given up as many runs as Felix has hits. While those are still fabulous numbers for Matsuzaka, whom do you think should be getting talked about non-stop?