Sports Redux: Living Dangerously With Daisuke

For all the hype and adoration heaped on Daisuke Matsuzaka, the fact is he's still technically a rookie, if a seasoned one. And rookies do things like get themselves into trouble. His last few starts, Dice has been prone to having one bad inning here and there, which combined with a lack of run support, has caused some trouble.

Last night, fortunately, the offense picked him up and pulled him out of the fire. The top of the sixth was Daisuke's Special Unhappy Unfortunate Inning, as an Aaron Hill home run helped turn a 4-1 Sox lead into a 4-4 tie.

But the offense rallied in the bottom of the inning. The Cap'n, Jason Varitek, crushed a Dustin McGowan pitch into deep center for a two-run shot (his ninth), then the Sox piled on a parade of hits and walks to end up with the final 9-4 score. Daisuke gets his eleventh nail-biting win. Varitek gets beat up and bruised.

Along with Varitek, Red Sox homers came from Eric Hinske and David Ortiz, who you may remember as the team's feared slugger, but who hadn't homered at Fenway since April 21. To give you an idea how long ago that was, that day the Red Sox beat New York to drop the Yankees three games back. That seems like forever.

The Revolution have reclaimed first place in the East after a 1-0 win over the New York Red Bulls (really?!). Andy Dorman scored the only goal in the win against the injury-riddled Red Bulls; if only they had access to some quick and inexpensive energy boosters.

Sunday column roundup: New Bronco Daniel Graham says he'll miss the Patriots but doesn't regret leaving. The reclusive Jose Canseco is talkin' steroids. Ichiro Suzuki is making a lot of money. The NBA summer league doesn't really mean anything. Joe Torre says managing a .500 team is harder than managing a 100-win team. And Phil Mushnick still hates everything.

Daisuke photo from CNN.