Fighting through some fatigue

PHILADELPHIA -- He threw a lot of pitches (82 in four innings). He bounced some in the dirt, walked four, struck out seven, and gave up a long home run to hit-or-miss Phillies slugger Pat Burrell. But after the Red Sox' last exhibition game of the spring, Daisuke Matsuzaka offered what probably is most important to the team.

"In answer to your question," he said, "I'm ready."

His confidence level?

"I'm not going to talk about the particulars to the media, but I will say that despite my initial concerns about coming into a new environment, a different environment, I feel I was able to pitch at my own pace, especially in the last half of these games."

Pitching coach John Farrell acknowledged that Matsuzaka is feeling some arm fatigue, which is a common occurrence in spring training. He skipped his bullpen session between his last two starts, but he did have a side session two days before this start, Farrell said, to prepare him for the rigors of a five-man rotation.

"Like other guys, he's going through fatigue -- I'm not going to call it 'dead arm,' " said Farrell, who thought Matsuzaka was trying to be too perfect and overthrew some pitches.

"He's in a stage of conditioning that he's in it [fatigue] now, versus where Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling may have gone through it [earlier]."

Among Dice-K's strikeout victims were nearly all of the Phillies' top hitters -- Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Jimmy Rollins. Rollins did nothing to discourage speculation that Matsuzaka has a never-before-seen trick pitch.

"It's a funky pitch, it definitely is," the All-Star shortstop told reporters. "It's something new in America."

Rollins described the pitch as a combination of a splitter and a changeup.

"It plays tricks with your eyes," he said. "With it slightly knuckling, it kind of throws you off."

Matsuzaka will make his regular-season debut Thursday afternoon in Kansas City. He said he asked for DVDs of the Royals to prepare for his start, and estimates that he's gone through the lineup at least three times.

In yesterday's 7-5 win over the Phillies, lefthanded reliever Hideki Okajima also gave up a home run, to Greg Dobbs, one of the hottest hitters in spring training. The homer was Dobbs's fifth . . . Coco Crisp had two more hits and finished batting .400 (8 for 20) in eight games after missing eight with a sore left shoulder. J.D. Drew also had two hits and finished his first spring with the Sox batting .356 . . . Kevin Youkilis had the highest average among Sox regulars this spring, batting .368 . . . David Ortiz and Jason Varitek homered, giving the Sox six in the two games here after hitting just 15 in Florida . . . Back in Fort Myers, Jon Lester, pitching for Single A Greenville, held Beloit, a Twins farm team, hitless in four innings. Lester walked one and struck out five while throwing 58 pitches. Mike Timlin, pitching for Single A Lancaster, worked two innings against the Twins' Fort Myers affiliate and gave up two hits, two walks, and a run in one inning. He threw 17 pitches. Both are on rehab assignments. Timlin is expected to join the club in time for the home opener; the Sox have 30 days to make a decision on Lester.

Third baseman Mike Lowell reflected on the 14-year prison sentence given to Ugueth Urbina, the former Sox reliever who was Lowell's teammate in 2003 when the Marlins won the World Series. Urbina was convicted on charges of attempted murder in his native Venezuela. "I'd spoken to Alex Gonzalez last year about Ugie," Lowell said of Gonzalez, the former Sox shortstop who like Urbina is Venezuelan. "Ugie was a tremendous teammate when I played with him. I don't know what he did at home, whatever. The only thing Alex was telling me was, 'It's not looking good.' " Added Lowell, "I don't know details or anything, but it's sad, whether it's true or whether it's not. It's sad that it's a guy who was awesome with us. My locker was right next to him -- me, Juan Pierre, and him. He was outstanding as a teammate. He really was."