NEW YORK -- It is never too early to begin the "Hideki Matsui for Most Valuable Player" campaign.
The New York Yankees have just won two dramatically different games against the Boston Red Sox -- 9-2 on Sunday night and 4-3 on Tuesday. But the one constant in these two contests was Matsui: three hits in each game, one home run in each game, five runs batted in overall, not to mention one game-turning catch.
Matsui was so good in the first two games of the season that he had to become the unofficial MVP leader in the clubhouse. We do not have to wait for the next 160 games to fully grasp an emerging trend.