Matsuzaka will start for Red Sox in opener

He will start today in the major league opener, but likely won’t finish the game.

TOKYO (AP) — Complete games were common for Daisuke Matsuzaka in Japan.

Then he came to the United States, where pitch counts and caution forced him out of games before he wanted to leave. Red Sox manager Terry Francona let him finish just one of his 32 starts as a rookie last year.

It’s Year 2 of the Dice-K era and Francona still isn’t ready to give his hardworking right-hander the ball and let him keep it until the end.

So fans in his homeland are bound to be disappointed tonight when Matsuzaka starts in the opening game of the major league season against the Oakland Athletics. The game is scheduled to begin at 6:05 a.m. EDT.

In 190 starts over eight seasons with the Seibu Lions, he completed 72 games.

“If we were playing this game in June, I’d love to send him out there and let him try to pitch a complete game, like he probably wants to,” Francona said Monday. “We just probably can’t shoot for that now. We’re still at a stage where you’re building arm strength.

“We’re just trying to mix and match the competitive nature and still gaining the strength for a long season.”

Too much work now can lead to injuries later. The manager thinks Dice-K can throw 90 pitches, possibly more — but not much more.

“We’re not going to let him go and go and go,” Francona said.

And go and go and go some more the way he did in 1998 when he threw 250 pitches in a 17-inning complete game in the Koshien national high school tournament, won by his school, Yokohama.

With Boston last year, his pitch counts ranged from 72 to 130, reaching 120 just six times.

Backup infielder Alex Cora is confident Matsuzaka can improve on his 15-12 record and 4.40 ERA as a rookie.

“The sky’s the limit,” Cora said. “He’s going to make adjustments. The hitters are going to make adjustments. He’s used to it now. I think he’s going to have the upper hand this year.”

Joe Blanton starts for Oakland, and manager Bob Geren doesn’t expect him to be intimidated by facing a national treasure of Japan.

“He is a very good pitcher,” Geren said of Dice-K at a news conference Monday with Blanton, “and so is the guy sitting next to me.”

But if Matsuzaka can pitch long enough to let Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon finish with one inning each, Francona would be happy.

“That would be about perfect. We would need to have the lead for that to happen,” he said. “That’s what we’re shooting for. That’s the formula.”

Since the Red Sox arrived in Tokyo early Friday morning, Francona has been peppered with questions from Japanese writers about whether Matsuzaka will pitch a complete game. He has said repeatedly that depends not only on the number of pitches he throws but on how hard he works if he gets in trouble.