Not too long ago, we asked the question, “Was Matsuzaka worth it?” And we concluded that he wasn’t. At least, not last season. But we remained optimistic that, in coming seasons, Matsuzaka would yet live up to his expensive contract.

Of course, that was taking for granted that Matsuzaka was as valuable a marketing tool as he was a strikeout machine. Scott Boras sold the Red Sox on Matsuzaka’s ability to bring in big bucks from Japan. And the Sox sold us on that theory.

But now comes word from the Boston Herald’s Rob Bradford that Matsuzaka wasn’t the marketing dynamo that we were led to believe.

Sam Kennedy, the Red Sox senior vice president of sales and marketing, told Bradford that the Matsuzaka signing wasn’t as profitable as the Sox imagined it would be:

“The Japanese advertising market has been softer than we thought, especially considering we have two Japanese pitchers.”

Softer? How soft?

While most estimates have Seattle and the Yankees garnering between $3-6 million annually because of the presence of Japanese outfielders Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui, respectively, the Red Sox’ final tally came up well short.

Funai Electronics proved to be the sole sponsorship gained because of Dice-K, netting the Red Sox an annual contract of approximately $900,000.

How come so soft?

“There was absolutely not this windfall of corporate advertising dollars we thought there may be, or that (Matsuzaka’s) representative might have led you to believe during the negotiations,” Kennedy said.

Wait? Scott Boras lied? Impossible!

But I don’t get it? Why weren’t the Japanese as excited about Matsuzaka playing in the US as they were about Ichiro, or Matsui?

Part of that was due to the advertisements in Fenway Park [map] not being as relevant in Matsuzaka’s case as they might be for an outfielder. Matsui, for instance, can potentially stand in front of a Japanese advertisement in the outfield for 162 games while the Sox pitcher is limited to one appearance every five days.

“We can’t put a sign on the pitcher’s mound,” Kennedy said.

Or could we? Mwa ha ha!

Daisuke Matsuzaka will start for the Sox in today’s game against the Yankees. No doubt it will give the talking heads yet another opportunity to debate the existence of the gyroball, Matsuzaka’s mythical pitch.

Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci says the gyroball is just a myth, but I know he’s wrong. All he’s got to back up his argument is interviews with Sox players and coaches. I’ve got science on my side. Or, more specifically, I’ve got the Science Guy.

That’s right, Bill Nye the Science Guy says the gyroball not only exists, but it is wicked nasty. Actually, Nye says the gyroball has been around for a long time. It’s just that, until Matsuzaka, nobody has been able to throw it with any velocity.

From MSN.com:

In a sense, this gyroball thing is nothing new. In New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A., back in 1870 (as I mentioned in an earlier column), a guy named Freddy Goldsmith threw a curveball that was flat–not dropping or sinking. He threw a ball past three rods set up in a row. It passed to the left of the first rod, to the right of the second, and to the left of the third. This was before reliable video technology. He must have held the ball with his palm almost facing the sky. The thing is, when you throw a curveball like that, it goes too slowly. Modern batters have time to react and can crush it. Similarly, when most of us non-big leaguers try to throw a gyroball, a pitch with nothing but sidespin, we just can’t get enough push on it to make it go fast enough to fool a batter.

At any rate, the key to this seems to be that Matsuzaka is some kind of smooth athlete. He can throw with his wrist going all different directions and not ruin his muscles and ligaments in the process, at least so far. He’s just good at it.

So there you have it. The Science Guy says the gyroball is real. Are you going to argue with science?