Dice-K's Leash

The Ranger's loss last night gave Terry Francona and John Farrell a little more wiggle room in dealing with Dice-K tonight.  With a 4.5 game lead in the wild-card, tonight's match up with the Angels in not a must win game so you won't see a pitching change if Matsuzaka looks bad early.  The Red Sox are going to give him a pretty long leash to see what they have; especially since Wake's future is up in the air.  John Farrell is optimistic that Dice-K is ready to go:

“He has done an outstanding job of committing to a program and getting himself in what we consider, just to the naked eye, better shape,” Farrell said. “He’s reshaped his body. He’s added core strength. He’s gotten the strength levels in his shoulder back to a level where he was a year ago. I think he feels good about himself as well, so we’re all looking forward to his next time out here.”

If Matsuzaka can pitch well tonight then look out; with a rotation of Beckett, Lester, Buchholz, and Dice-K going into the post-season the Red Sox could go deep into the month of October.