Hesperia's Smith makes MLB debut

BOSTON — Hesperia High School grad Chris Smith made his major league debut Saturday, relieving a struggling Daisuke Matsuzaka as the Red Sox lost 9-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Smith graduated from Hesperia in 1999 and later became a star at UC Riverside. The right-hander left Triple-A Pawtucket for Boston on Tuesday, his second call-up in less than two months.

He didn’t make an appearance in his first call-up but finally saw some action Saturday. Smith worked four innings, allowing three hits with three strikeouts and no walks. He was charged with just one run, though he did give up a grand slam to St. Louis’ Troy Glaus.

The Cardinals loaded the bases with no outs in the second before Matsuzaka was relieved by Smith. After getting a big hand for striking out Rick Ankiel swinging, Smith gave up Glaus’ slam into the first row of the Green Monster seats to make it 8-0.

Smith shut out St. Louis for the remainder of his outing.

Matsuzaka (8-1) had been on the DL since May 30 because of a mild strain in his rotator cuff and was tagged for seven runs in one-plus inning. It was the shortest outing of his brief major league career.

“When he came out, there were not complaints about soreness, fatigue, anything, so that’s a good sign,” Boston manager Terry Francona said. “I’m hopeful we’ll just chalk it up to a bad outing.”

Matsuzaka walked Skip Schumaker on five pitches to start the game and Aaron Miles followed with a shot into the front row of the right-field seats for his first homer of the season. Jason LaRue added a two-run single later in the first inning.

“I just hope that I can get back to a good spot,” Matsuzaka said through a translator. “The good, I can’t really think of anything that was good. Things were mostly bad today.”

Matsuzaka made one five-inning rehab start for Triple-A Pawtucket against Lehigh Valley on June 16, going four scoreless innings before allowing three hits and two runs in the fifth.

“For me personally, I didn’t feel like I needed it,” Matsuzaka said, when asked if he felt like he may have needed another rehab start.
The Cardinals felt like they were facing Matsuzaka at the right time.

“I think if you ask him, his command probably wasn’t exactly where he wanted,” Glaus said. “He walked a couple of guys. He made some mistakes and we were able to take advantage. It was that simple.”

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa agreed that the layoff likely hurt Matsuzaka.

“We caught a break,” he said. “He’s coming off the disabled list. You could tell he was rusty. He fell behind and had to throw the ball down the middle.”

Notes: Smith worked four innings, the longest relief outing for a Red Sox debut since Dana Kiecker went four innings April 12, 1990, at Detroit.