Eight is enough to make Matsuzaka's point

The stat mavens in the press box had already revved up their computers, figuring out the last time a Red Sox pitcher had consecutive complete games, consecutive complete games as a rookie, consecutive complete-game wins. The numbers were being crunched, the years recorded (2005, 1984, and 1996, respectively), when Daisuke Matsuzaka got a congratulatory pat from his manager and tipped his hat to the crowd after the eighth inning.

No matter. Even though Matsuzaka would not get his second straight complete-game win (after his toppling of the Tigers Monday), he still got the win, his offense buoying him in a 13-3 beating of the Braves yesterday in the first game of the day-night doubleheader.

"He's very accustomed to that," Sox catcher Jason Varitek said of Matsuzaka and the complete-game culture in Japan. "He's very accustomed to pitching very deep into games. He wants the ball later in the game, too.

"Not saying that's any different from anybody else -- Curt [Schilling] is very much the same way -- you have that mentality that you tend to stretch games out more than you do just getting out of there.

"He just wants to pitch. He wants to compete. It's a big asset that he has."

Having thrown 104 pitches -- he said later he could probably have maxed out at 140-150 -- his day seemed to end earlier than he would have chosen. But that hardly diminished Matsuzaka's outing, especially over the first six innings, when he allowed just five hits (one in each of the first five). At that point, Matsuzaka had thrown just 67 pitches, prompting the scurrying for statistics.

But he struggled a bit in the seventh, giving up a run-scoring single to Jarrod Saltalamacchia and a two-run home run (on the next pitch) to Jeff Francoeur.

Still, with a four-batter eighth, Matsuzaka thought he had another inning left in his workday.

"Given my pitch count at the end of the eighth inning, I was expecting to go back out there in the ninth," he said through his translator. "I think, given my pace up to that point, it would have been normal to go back for the ninth inning, but the manager came in and spoke to me and said that, given our big lead, go and get some rest."

Though the stats appeared similar to those from his last outing, the performance wasn't. With Matsuzaka's command of so many pitches, essentially every day is different on the mound. He had success with his cut fastball and splitter against the Tigers, but he labeled his fastball and slider as his best pitches yesterday.

"Learn every day," Varitek said. "Every time he's out there, it's almost [that] you have a different experience with different pitches.

"We utilized quite a few different pitches, threw some better breaking balls, threw some better curveballs, threw some better sliders, threw some really good splits. It still came down to he had pretty good location on his fastball."

That location was the reason for his no-walk performance, though manager Terry Francona cautioned that walks are not always the best barometer.

Matsuzaka was keeping his pitches, including his breaking pitches, away from the middle of the plate but still in the strike zone.

"We're now seeing the results of a lot of hard work and a really good pitcher," Francona said. "He threw so many strikes. Today he was attacking the strike zone with a lot of different pitches.

"I looked up in the sixth inning and his strike percentage was close to 75 percent. That's pretty phenomenal."

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.