"Daisuke Matsuzaka knew he was walking a tightrope. He could sense patience was running thin. That much was evident when he took the mound for yesterday's Marathon matinee against the Blue Jays at Fenway Park and he was booed by the crowd of 37,916.

The memory of Matsuzaka's two-inning, seven-run, eight-hit debacle against the Rays the previous Monday lingered. And after the struggling Red Sox had put together back-to-back wins against the Sons of John Farrell, Matsuzaka didn't want to kill the momentum before the team left on a 10-day trip to the West Coast.

"If I pitched badly, I thought there might not be another chance,'' Matsuzaka said."