Dangan Ressha.

It started with a simple query to a colleague:

Has anybody had as much success as Daisuke Matsuzaka while walking as many people as he does?

Thanks to the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index, we found the answer: kinda.

It's hard to say that walks are Daisuke Matsuzaka's Achilles Heel, since the Red Sox hurler just finished an 18-3 season with substantially fewer hits than innings pitched (128 hits in 167.2 IP), nearly a strikeout per inning (8.27 K/9), a 2.90 earned-run average and -- most notably -- a 158 ERA+. Had Cliff Lee not spent the last year hurling cowhide with the combined glory of Thor, Leonardo Da Vinci, Alan Thicke, and Sandy Koufax, Matsuzaka would have led the league in ERA+ and would be the odds-on favorite for the AL Denton True Young Award.

Still, even my colleague (a Red Sox fan) had to concede that Matsuzaka's propensity to walk batters (5.05 BB/9) doesn't make his success appear sustainable. A few unlucky bounces or centered balls and his stats wouldn't be so sanguine. But back to the original question: How rare was Daisuke Matsuzaka's 2008 season?

Pretty damned rare. The list of pitchers (min. 162 innings) since 1901 with a BB/9 greater than 5 and an ERA+ greater than 150:

•	Year	ERA+	BB/9
Daisuke Matsuzaka	2008	158	5.05
Hal Newhouser	1942	161	5.59

In other words, it hasn't happened since John McCain was a spry youngster. But maybe we set the parameters too high. Specifically, maybe we asked too much of ERA+. So we reset the study, this time using a BB/9 greater than 4.75, a H/9 less than 7 and an ERA less than 3.25.

•	Year	BB/9	H/9	ERA	ERA+
Hal Newhouser	1942	5.59	6.71	2.45	161
King Cole	1910	4.88	6.53	1.80	159
Daisuke Matsuzaka	2008	5.05	6.87	2.90	158
Nolan Ryan	1977	6.14	5.96	2.77	141
Herb Score	1955	6.10	6.26	2.85	140
Al Leiter	1996	4.97	6.39	2.93	140
Johnny Vander Meer	1941	5.01	6.84	2.82	129
Tom Cheney	1962	5.04	6.96	3.17	128
Nolan Ryan	1972	4.98	5.26	2.28	128
Bob Turley	1955	6.46	6.13	3.06	123
Nolan Ryan	1974	5.46	5.98	2.89	118
Jim Shaw	1914	4.80	6.93	2.70	104
Allie Reynolds	1943	4.94	6.34	2.99	104

Of the selected seasons, only Hal Newhouser and Nat Cole dominated like Matsuzaka did in 2008. Al Leiter was the most recent to do so in 1996. Before that, it hadn't been done since Nolan Ryan did it thrice in the roaring '70s.

Notice that Ryan's name appears on that list more than anybody's. Is Daisuke Matsuzaka the second coming to Nolan Ryan? Time will tell.

It's important to note that after 2003, Matsuzaka's age-22 season, he was never plagued with a large walk total while playing in Japan. Perhaps by this point, he had acquired enough status there to get close calls on balls and strikes, status he lost when he traveled across the Pacific. Could it be that umpires are to blame for Daisuke Matsuzaka's high walk totals?