PORTLAND – Hello, America.

Pitching his first meaningful baseball game in the Western Hemisphere, Junichi Tazawa brought the same bad news to the bump that characterized his rapid ascent through Japan’s minor-league equivalent.

If you’re taking inventory, that includes a 90-to-94 mph fastball, one that Tazawa locates with all the precision of somebody wielding a tricked-up Wii joystick.

There’s a lollipop curve that drops from high noon to dusk on the imaginary clock at home plate, leaving its victims with sprained wrists and back spasms and fast-forwarding to last call at the hotel bar.

He’s equipped with textbook short-term memory loss, the kind that makes a leadoff triple harmless as a 15-pitch walk.

Throw in the requisite, Far East hitch in his windup – picture somebody trying to lift his cleat and realizing there’s a giant wad of Big League Chew holding it down – and you have a right-hander who’ll leave big-league hitters wielding flyswatters in a year or less.

And here’s the best part, Boston Red Sox fans: He’s all yours.

Plucked from something known as the Nippon Oil Eneos from some place called the Japan Industrial League, Tazawa made his U.S. debut Thursday night for the Portland Sea Dogs.

The Dogs dropped their season opener, 3-0, to the Connecticut Defenders at Hadlock Field. Not without the 6-foot, 175-pound Tazawa reminding us what these sub-varsity games are all about, though.

Tazawa struck out seven in five eye-opening innings, sprinkling four hits, a walk, a hit batsman and a balk into his learning experience.

He’s no Daisuke Matsuzaka, and the difference isn’t merely confined to his lack of a lazy, predictable, headline-hungry nickname such as J-Zow or June Bug. (Don’t worry. It’s coming.)

Two-thirds of his 66 pitches were strikes. We’re not talking about a guy who nibbles the corners and forces you to make three nervous trips to the refrigerator for his every journey to the mound.

Don’t expect his rare walks to evolve into doubles more quickly than you can psychoanalyze a high leg kick, either. Connecticut’s only two attempted base stealers were summarily dismissed to the dugout.

That hesitation with his front foot while dealing from the stretch looks dangerous. Until, that is, Tazawa’s arm releases with Tim Lincecum-like violence.

Where’d this guy come from?

Yokohama, to be precise. And if you don’t think that means much, need I remind you who gobbled up your fat-and-happy countrymen’s lunch at the last two World Baseball Classics?

Just before signing a three-year major league deal with the Sox in December, Tazawa capped a career year on the home front.

His numbers – 13-1, 5 saves, 0.80 ERA, 114 strikeouts, 15 walks – were the kind that don’t require qualifiers or asterisks.

The man can pitch.

Ask Connecticut left fielder Bobby Felmy, who clouted a leadoff double in Thursday’s second inning. Tazawa’s balk shuffled Felmy to third, where he promptly fizzled when Tazawa fanned Brett Pill and Andrew D’Alessio before stabbing Mike Mooney’s scorching one-hopper himself to escape the jam.

Mooney’s opening triple in the fifth went for squat when Tazawa whiffed David Maroul and Jackson Williams, then sawed off Brad Boyer’s bat on a meek pop-out in foul ground along the third-base side.

Tazawa wound up wearing the scarlet ‘L,’ victimized by the Defenders’ five-man, four-hit shutout. (Thank you, Tony LaRussa.)

Portland left the bases loaded in the second inning and never again set foot in scoring position until there were two out in the ninth.

But the point was made. Boston’s scouts, and its philosophy, win again.

Best of all, Tazawa has the benefit of reasonable, even human, expectations.

Grossly overpaid in the biggest preemptive strike of the decade not authorized by President George W. Bush, Matsuzaka was asked to adapt to the American way of life and style of play with a million sets of eyes and cases of beer breath over his shoulder.

Hideki Irabu, Hideo Nomo and others made the hop, skip and jump across the Pacific before Dice-K and were greeted by press clippings they couldn’t possibly justify.

Tazawa began the process of paying back his bonus before slightly south of 6,000 see-no-evil friends.

His authoritative start makes me wonder if the Sox haven’t hit on a brilliant strategy. Find imports before their prime. Get them into your instructional program before they develop irreversible bad habits. Let them serve as the opening act before putting their name in neon and subjecting them to sold-out arenas.

He’s a better kept secret than his predecessors.

That Tazawa couldn’t duplicate Jonathan Papelbon (2005) or Justin Masterson (2008) by starting and winning the Double-A season opener will help him avert the radar a while longer.

The bigger accomplishment, of course, would be following that blue-chip tandem’s lead and making a September spot start or pitching scoreless eighth innings in a Boston pennant race before the year’s out.

Get ready, America. I can see it happening.