Tito Francona confirmed today what all the RSN have been wishing (waiting?) for, Matsuzaka has been placed on the 15-day DL and according to the Globe, it maybe for a long period of time:

he (Francona) hinted it could take months for the struggling right to recover.

"It's not going to be a two-week DL thing," said Francona. "We have a lot of work ahead of us to get him back to being Daisuke."

I want to give credit to both Dice-K and the the Sox management for that decision:

• The FO for admitting the obvious that the guy is struggling and in the most competitive division, pulling a stinker evrey 5 days will hurt the team, so acting quickly was a necessity, and They did!
• Dice-K for being a team-first kind of player and "reaching for advice" as he mentioned in his press conference

"...I also felt I couldn't keep going the way I was going, so they had to make changes," Matsuzaka said through an interpreter. "I thought that, if I keep going like this, I was going to be a burden to this team."Matsuzaka said he approached the coaching staff first. "I wanted to approach them and I wanted to be prepared to be taken out of the rotation," said Matsuzaka.

"Through the whole thing, he was very cooperative," said manager Terry Francona

Now, the 6-men rotation is a thing of the past, let's hope that Smoltz bring his A game, if he doesn't perform well then it will be Buchholz time! Oh and BTW let's stop the Penny trade talk too!

The path for the Dice man will be: DL. Florida. Portland. Pawtucket. Fenway. Take place of injured SP. Finish strong. Win WS.