A Star Is Born: Felix Hernandez Outshines Daisuke Matsuzaka

Finally—Fenway Park has been graced with the presence of Daisuke Matsuzaka.

In the climax to a five-month soap opera, "Dice-K" threw his first Fenway pitch—a strike, to Ichiro Suzuki—at 7:08 PM on Wednesday April 11th.

It was supposed to be memorable. It was supposed to be historical. It was supposed to validate the $103 million the Red Sox spent on Matsuzaka over the offseason.

By all accounts, it was a night for the ages. However, in the eyes of the Fenway faithful, it stood out for all the wrong reasons.

I was fortunate enough to land tickets to the game three weeks ago—but it wasn't until Red Sox manager Terry Francona decided to open the year with a five-man rotation that I understood the momentousness of the occasion.

I guarantee you I will never be so excited about a Julian Tavarez start for the rest of my life.

Furthermore, it wasn't until Monday night's doubleheader between the Indians and Mariners got snowed out that I knew Felix Hernandez would be taking the ball against Dice-K. Given my fantasy ties to King Felix ("Hey Felix Hernandez," April 4th), I'm sure you can imagine how I excited I was.

More than anything, though, I just wanted to enjoy a nice night at the Fens without fretting about my fantasy numbers, or worrying about the potent Red Sox lineup roughing up Hernandez—so I benched the young gun on all three of my teams.

Bad decision.

By the end of the game, I was kicking myself for sitting the best young pitcher in baseball on the eve of his finest moment to date.

And it was clear that the exorbitant hype surrounding an intra-division April game was more than justified.

ESPN2 carried the game nationally to give most of the country its first look at Dice-K. Daisuke was solid but not extraordinary, surrendering three runs over seven innings. As the masses filed out onto Yawkey Way after a 3-0 Sox loss, it was clear that the real coming-out performance belonged to Felix Hernandez.

Good players on small market clubs usually don't become household names until they change uniforms—think Carlos Beltran in Kansas City. On Wednesday, King Felix took matters into his own hands.

Felix's first start of the season was a stellar one: 12 strikeouts over eight shutout innings. Wednesday's start was just as impressive, but for an entirely different reason: Felix pitched a complete-game, one-hit shutout with a fastball that never broke 97 MPH on the Fenway Park scoreboard.

Granted, a six-strikeout night is nothing to sneeze at for most pitchers—but it usually spells trouble for power pitchers who rely on the K. Hernandez was forced to reinvent himself at Fenway, and effectively proved that he doesn't always have to blow hitters away in order to succeed.

The lone Sox hit came from J.D. Drew leading off the eighth inning. It was a sharp groundball up the middle that slid under the outstretched glove of second baseman Jose Lopez, who appeared to over-dive on the play.

Lopez made a tremendous basket catch in the bottom of the first inning on a Kevin Youkilis flare, but I'm certain he'd admit that he could—and maybe should—have made the play in the eighth.

In any event, Felix settled down and retired the next six Red Sox, thereby etching his name among baseball's elite starting pitchers.

The emotions were mixed as the masses left Fenway Park late Wednesday night. Some fans were excited to simply have been a part of the Matsuzaka Mania that accompanied the game. Others, in typical Boston fashion, were already looking forward to 2008 after watching their beloved Sox muster only one hit off a 21-year-old.

And me?

I left the game knowing that I'd just borne witness to two historical moments: the beginning of the Matsuzaka Era in Boston, and the beginning of Felix Hernandez' s nationwide reign over Major League lineups.