Dice K was in a group with the other Sox starters and threw to Varitek on one of the side mounds. Then he took some one-hop fungoes from close range off the bat of Francona. It's a pitchers' fielding drill (done with spongy baseballs to soften the inevitable chest-battering bad hops) which gets pretty spirited and competitive. Pitchers' fielding practice, a favorite activity of the departed Joe Kerrigan, took on a whole new meaning during last year's World Series when Tigers hurlers committed five errors in five games against the Cardinals.
Forty-year-old Tim Wakefield, participating in his 15th big league spring training, demonstrated he is one of the better glove men on the Sox staff and said, "We try to make it fun out there and it's really not tedious until you're covering first base for the thousandth time. But those things are important. They might save you in a game sometime during the year."
Wakefield and Schilling were in the group with Matsuzaka and everyone's been nodding and bowing with the celebrated new teammate. Schilling said he tried out some conversational Japanese and when Dice K was asked about Curt's language skills, the new guy smiled and said [in English], "Very good."
"There are 200 [media] people here just because of him," said Schilling. "But he gives off the impression that he doesn't want to be an inconvenience to people. He's a good kid. And he's an ace in the making. He's like Pedro in a sense because he has multiple strikeout pitches."
Dice K の初登板カンサツシティ カフマンスタディアムなららくらくチケット取れるでしょう
The "news" of the day came when Francona said the ballclub has scheduled Matsuzaka to make his first start against Boston College at City of Palms Park March 2. That puts Dice K on a path to pitch the third game of the regular season in Kansas City and the second game of the home season against the Mariners April 11. It means Matsuzaka's first Red Sox pitch likely will be aimed at Boston College's Johnny Ayers (the punter on the football team).