INQUIRER Sports

TAMPA, Florida -- The Boston Red Sox will turn to Japanese star Daisuke Matsuzaka for their starting pitcher against the Oakland Athletics on Major League Baseball's opening day March 25 in Tokyo.

Once Matsuzaka's wife delivered the couple's second child on Saturday, it opened the door for the 27-year-old to make his first MLB opening day start.

"Just because of Daisuke's situation, I don't want to say it was in limbo, because he was prepared to pitch," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said on Monday.

"But there's just proper ways to do things. So he went home and things kind of broke, but he was set to go anyway. We've kind of had this in place for a while," Francona said.

Matsuzaka went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA during his rookie campaign in 2007.

Jon Lester will start the second game of the series.