I mentioned in the dump this morning how people were getting carried away with the idea of Daniel Bard being a starter, because there's no way the Sox would let him start all year. I suggested maybe he and Aceves swap places in June or so, that way limiting the number of innings Bard would pitch.
There were rumblings about a possible early Daisuke return over the weekend on Twitter; now comes this tweet from @RedSoxStats (maybe my favorite Red Sox-related Twitter account). When Dice got hurt last year, the common assumption was that he wouldn't make it back until September. Then last month Peter Abraham moved that up, saying it was expected he could be back "some time in the second half".
Late May is something entirely different. Maybe it's a sign of how weak our pitching depth is, but a healthy Daisuke Matsuzaka (in a contract year, mind you) could be useful to us. The Bill James projection on FanGraphs have Matsuzaka pitching 74 innings across 12 starts, giving us a 4.14 ERA. Coming back in this time frame could get us closer to 20 starts. Twenty starts of a low-4 ERA would be more than acceptable.
