shirish dai, njoy reading something that's not related to Yankees ;) September 10, 2007 Hitting a wall? By Gordon Edes, Globe Staff Editor's note: Excerpted from today's Red Sox notebook in the Boston Globe. One major league scout who watched Daisuke Matsuzaka in Saturday night's 11-5 loss agreed with the assessment by pitching coach John Farrell that Matsuzaka was overthrowing and thus was up in the zone with his fastball. His curveball and changeup were nonexistent, especially in a 42-pitch third inning in which the Orioles scored seven times. But while the Sox downplay the fatigue factor, the scout mentioned that Matsuzaka's size and maximum effort, coupled with his history of a lighter workload in Japan, make him an obvious candidate for hitting the wall. Before three of his last five starts, the Sox gave Matsuzaka an extra day's rest, but his ERA in that span was 9.57 (28 ER in 26 1/3 innings). He's been giving up home runs in bunches lately, six in his last four starts spanning just 20 1/3 innings. He also has walked 11 in the last four starts. "Obviously his command wasn't there," Francona said yesterday in his pregame session with reporters. "I just think sometimes as the game heats up, pitchers have to throttle back. That's not always the easiest thing to do." Source: http://www.boston.com