On Baseball

Rob Bradford

Josh Beckett was kicking back at his South Texas ranch last night, far from the chaos circulating in the Boston area, when he learned that life for everybody associated with the Red Sox was about to change.

"How much did he get?" Beckett asked, referring to the final agreement between Boston and the newest member of its starting rotating, Japanese ace Daisuke Matsuzaka.

The answer was, "Six years, $52 million with incentives."

"Well, it's a great thing then," Beckett responded. "If it's going to help the team, then I'm for it."

Beckett's reaction most likely was being echoed by three other members of the Red Sox pitching staff.

Matsuzaka, a 26-year-old considered by many as the best pitcher in Japanese League history, has punctuated a collection of starters who may just make up one of the most potent rotation in Boston baseball history. If nothing else, it is the most eclectic rotation ever to grace the Fenway Park mound.

There's the 40-year-old Curt Schilling, preparing for his final season in Massachusetts while also calling Arizona home. Tim Wakefield is the Florida-based knuckleballer, having called the Red Sox his employer since 1995. Closer-turned-starter Jonathan Papelbon plays the wide-eyed, fist-pumping fireballer, already antsy to break camp at his new Mississippi home and head to Fort Myers. Beckett represents the typical Texan, brash bold and big in all of his endeavors.

Now there is Matsuzaka.

All of the four holdovers have had their indoctrination as a Red Sox starter, and yesterday it was Step No. 1 for Matsuzaka-san.

Even as the pitcher joined the Red Sox representatives and his agent, Scott Boras, yesterday flying over Missouri in owner John Henry's private jet on the way to Hanscom Field in Bedford, Boston fans and media were gathering in and around Fenway Park waiting for news of Matsuzaka's next move.

Sure, the Sox were in the midst of introducing a $36 million shortstop, Julio Lugo, but the questions to the high-priced leadoff hitter were asked with one eye on the podium and the other on the Internet tracking Henry's plane.

Besides a bombardment of the Web site YouTube.com in search of images of Matsuzaka pitching for the Seibu Lions, much of what the pitcher brings is based in blind faith.

Knowing that the Red Sox were enamored enough to lay out a total of $103.11 million (adding in the $51.11 million paid to Seibu in the posting process) has sold many of the team's faithfuls. A litany of testimonies, from scouts and executives who either ventured to witness Matsuzaka in one of his eight seasons as a professional in Japan or watched him in his 65 innings against international competition (compiling a 1.80 ERA), seemed enough to sell the cynics who scoffed at the unknown.

It is December and the best of each those pitchers slated to start for the Red Sox is expected. Papelbon will surely show no ill effects of his loose shoulder. Schilling will be all systems go during his goodbye tour. Wakefield will settle into his usual consistency with a full year of newly re-signed Doug Mirabelli behind he plate. And Beckett is primed to shake off the first-year American League hangover and join his mates in the rarefied air that is the top of the rotation.

Then there is Matsuzaka.

Using an arsenal of five to six pitches, headlined by a vicious slider and above-average fastball, the World Baseball Classic's MVP is being viewed as the perfect complement to the stable under the control of new Boston pitching coach John Farrell.

"His team was a pretty good team, the Seibu Lions. He had a few good pitchers, but nothing in comparison to Schilling, Beckett and Wakefield," said Kazumi Gillespie, a writer for Tokyo Chunichi Sports. "Think he's looking forward to it. That will supply more motivation."

Last year, Boston's rotation finished 24th out of 30 teams in ERA and 17th in innings pitched. If the hype being fed by last night's road-side welcome signs for Matsuzaka is going to be realized, those numbers will have to be more in the range of the 2004 Red Sox rotation, for which every pitcher made every start on their way to making history.

It will be two more months before they finally make their way from the corners of the world to meet in Fort Myers, but now the anticipation has gotten a whole lot more interesting.

Schilling has already said he will use the time to learn Japanese, a tact perhaps taken by Farrell and some of his charges. Beckett, however, will enter the process a little less low key.

"I tell you what," he said, "I'll learn to say 'konichiwa.' That will be about it."

For now, when it comes to Matsuzaka, "welcome" is all anybody needs.