McClure: Dice-K looks ‘good'

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FORT MYERS, Fla.Right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka threw a bullpen session Saturday afternoon for Sox pitching coach Bob McClure as he continues his recovery from Tommy John surgery in June. He threw 40 pitches in a two simulated innings.

Good, McClure said of Matsuzakas outing. It was 40 pitches, threw 20 and then we have him sit down in the middle of an inning and do 20 more. But as far as what Im seeing from a health standpoint, its hard to tell he was ever even hurt by the way hes throwing a baseball. That doesnt mean hes ready. Just staying its free and easy its coming out of his hand really good, and its clean. Looks sharp. Hes on schedule.

What that means for when Matsuzaka could be back in a game McClure couldnt say.

I couldnt even venture into that right now, he said. Because you dont want to rush because of that surgery. So he may look better than he would if we moved him up to pitch. Because when you watch him right now it almost looks like he could pitch in a game. But thats not the right thing to do. You just dont want to go backwards. Hes worked too hard. Hes put a lot of time into this going forward. So we dont want to make any steps going backwards.

Matsuzaka will likely throw a few more bullpen sessions before progressing to batting practice.

I would say maybe a couple more of these bullpen sessions then maybe going into BP, McClure said. And then hell probably throw three or four batting practice sessions. Maybe the last one or last two where he throws a certain amount of pitches, sits down, comes back out, warms up and then does it again.

And then after he does that three or four times. It all depends on how many days he has in between Its all going to depend on how hes feeling and what the doctors say.

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