Doryoku is Japanese for "Bulldog"

Next time the pitch-count police starts calling Joe Walsh all sorts of names over the way he deploys his stud pitchers, maybe they should call him this:

Sensei.

In SI's baseball preview issue (on newsstands now), Tom Verducci's excellent cover story on Daisuke Matsuzaka predicts that the Red Sox import may introduce America to a new and improved philosophy on how to develop pitchers. The thinking is, Dice-K -- with his ho-hum regimen that includes 300-pitch bullpens and twice-a-week long-toss sessions -- might do for U.S. pitching coaches what Toyota has done for U.S. auto manufacturers. In the article, former Met skipper Bobby Valentine vouches for the Japanese approach, whose essence is captured by the Japanese word doryoku, meaning "unflagging effort." Valentine, who's managed in Japan the last three seasons, says he now believes the U.S. system is too risk-averse when it comes to injury and coddles its pitchers too much.

Betcha didn't realize that Deuce was simply channeling Far East philosophilies all those times he left Ben Crockett in to throw a complete game. Doryoku, it turns out, is Japanese for "bulldog."