You can feel the first subtle hint of the Dice-K Hype Backlash starting already. I was out with some friends last night, not the biggest sports fans and for the first time I heard, "Can you believe he's getting all that money and he stinks" or words to that effect. Even worse, they segwayed into the old tired lament I thought we chloroformed thre Octobers ago: "He'll do nothing for us for a couple of years, then he'll go to the Yankees and win the Cy Young award."

Siiigh. And thus it begins. First couple of pebbles move. Then a few stones dislodge. Rocks slide. Then it's an avalanche. When all the negative jagoffs, all the haters, the people who equate following the Red Sox with wallowing in pain and misfortune who haven't had a clue what to do with themselves once they found out people no longer give a goddamned about what Babe Ruth did or didn't do with his piano back in 1920's Sudbury once again get to find something to bitch about.

You had to see it coming. It was inevitable. The Sox won the Dice-K bid in November during one of the slowest news months on the sports calendar. The coverage was, I won't say "excessive," but I will call it "massive." The national press was wall-to-wall Dice-K. The Sox contimplated starting NESN2 because 24 hours a day just wasn't enough time. And you had to feel that anything less than 1999 Pedro there were Nazis in the woodpile that were just waiting to jump out and scream "Bust!"

I'm not joining the chorus. Matsuzaka will be fine. Seriously, how many hard hit balls has he given up so far? He's had problems with control that have been henteko to say the least. It seems like once a game lately he's been good for one inning, like last night's first, that last longer than a 4th grade recorder concert.

But the guy can hurl. We've been told he's got six pitches he can throw on any count. My eyes tell me he's throwing four of them consistently right now. All he's got to do is iron out the weird little yips with his control, and he'll be lights out. I stuck by Coco when the whole world wanted him shipped to Greenville. I refused to quit on Varitek. And now I'm going on record saying by Mother's Day, Dice-K will be one of the top five pitchers in baseball. And then the kuritikku will shut the hell up.