Tonight's Target: Daisuke Matsuzaka

Vitals: 26 yo RHP. Born in Tokyo, Japan. 6-0, 187. 94-45, 2.99 in Japan. 3-2, 4.36 here. $6.3 million salary.

Arsenal: Dice-K throws six pitches--three fastballs: a mid 90s four-seamer (rides high), a low 90s two-seamer (moves down), and a cut fastball that moves away from righties, and three off-speed pitches: a slow 11-7 curveball. a mid-80s slider that he tries to back-door lefties with to strike them out, and his change-up, which is considered to be his best pitch. Of course, there's the mystical gyroball, which you can read about after the jump.

Recent Battles: The M's, with a slight assist from nearly-perfect King Felix, beat Dice-K three weeks ago. He pitched well--8 hits and 3 runs in 7 innings is nothing to sniff at...but he wasn't hitting the catcher's target that night--his ball-strike ratio was 39/64, which isn't that good. It looked like an off-night.

Our Best Weapon: We're thinking Ichiro. He was 0-4 against Dice-K last time. We expect a better showing in the second and possibly final 2007 battle between Japan's two top ballplayers.

The Internet Says: When Matsuzaka was dating his current wife, a former Japanese newscaster, he parked his car at her apartment for the night, and it got towed. But Matsuzaka wasn't supposed to be driving--his license was suspended. His personal assistant went to pick up the car, and try to get the violation on his own record, but a tabloid got the whole thing on tape, and their coverup was exposed. This was such a huge scandal that the president of Matsuzaka's team, the Seibu Lions, resigned, and Matsuzaka was "confined to his dormitory, except for running" for several months.

Horacio Ramirez (2-1, 4.41) goes for the M's. Gametime is 7:05

Daisuke Matsuzaka [ESPN]
Plenty of Weapons up Dice-K's sleeve [MLB]
Seattle 3, Boston 0, April 11, 2007 [Baseball Reference]
And you thought Matsuzaka was a problem [JapanTimes.com]

Below the jump is a short Japanese primer--with subtitles--on the famous gyroball.