Red Sox Report: Beckett Shines, Wakefield Honored
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Now that’s more like it!
Tuesday afternoon at Fenway Park, Josh Beckett celebrated his 32nd birthday by turning in his best performance of the season as the Boston Red Sox defeated the Seattle Mariners 5-0 to sweep their 2-game series.
Beckett went 7 innings allowing just 4 hits while walking 2 and striking out 9. It was a 180-degree turnaround from his previous outing where he couldn’t get out of the third inning against Cleveland before yielding 7 earned runs to the Indians.
To say that Beckett needed a performance like this would be an understatement. Then again, based upon his recent comments, you wonder if he even cares about how he is perceived by the fans and the media. None-the-less, Beckett had great control of his pitches including his curveball which was very encouraging.
Manager Bobby Valentine said of Beckett’s performance, “he wanted to show everyone he was Josh Beckett today.” Valentine continued, “he belongs on that mound, that’s his saddle out there.”
When questioned after the game about his increased velocity, Beckett seemed to downplay that and instead point to the location of his pitches being the key to his success. “I thought today, just keeping the ball down, I got my fingers on top of the ball so even when the ball was up, I had some angle to my pitches and I thinks that’s why a lot of times they don’t hit the ball flush,” he said.
Beckett’s solid start completed one trip through the 5-man rotation where all of the starters turned in quality starts. It’s the first time since May of last year that they have accomplished such a feat.
This successful trip through the rotation only solidifies the belief that the failure of the team’s starting pitching was at the core of its problems in the first month of the season.
What should be interesting to watch is what happens from here. Boston’s schedule get increasingly more difficult starting Wednesday when they open up a 2-game series at Tampa Bay. They follow that up with 3 in Philadelphia where they will not be allowed to use a designated hitter. That’s a big loss for Boston considering how hot David Ortiz has been.
The Sox will wrap up their road trip with 3 games at Baltimore before returning home for 3 against the Rays and 4 against the Detroit Tigers.
NOTES:
-It was “Tim Wakefield Day” at Fenway Park Tuesday. Wakefield spent 17 of his 19 seasons in the Majors with Boston winning 200 games (186 in Boston). He proved to be a very valuable pitcher for the organization. The highlights of the day were a heartfelt speech by David Ortiz and the return of Doug Mirabelli via another police escort similar to the one he received in 2006 when he returned to Boston. But Wakefield really got choked up when members of his charity, Wakefield’s Warriors, emerged from center field. He tossed out the ceremonial first pitch which was, you guessed it, a knuckleball. As he did so many times in the past, Mirabelli managed to catch it.
-David Ortiz belted his 8th homerun of the season to right field in the 3rd inning to put Boston on top 1-0. Ortiz went 2-3 at the plate. He is now hitting .353 with 27 RBI on the season.
-Will Middlebrooks had an RBI single in the 5th plating Ortiz. Middlebrooks is hitting .300 with 4 homeruns and 14 RBI since being called up from Pawtucket. He is making it very hard for the Red Sox to move him out of the starting line-up once Kevin Youkilis returns. Unfortunately, that decision may have been taken out of manager Bobby Valentine’s hands as GM Ben Cherrington made it abundantly clear that a player does not lose his job due to injury. As has been written here in the past, that statement is true. However, a player can lose a job if he is not playing well or the player behind him is playing better and that has certainly been the case with Middlebrooks.
-Speaking of Youlikis, he will begin a rehab stint Wednesday for the Pawsox in Durham. He is slated to be the team’s DH tomorrow and then play in the field on Thursday. It is possible that he could rejoin the club in Philadelphia on Friday.
-Valentine said that while losing can be contagious, so too can winning which the team is doing right now. He said that he believes the starting pitchers are now feeding off one another and that “there’s a little competition there” between the five starters.
-There was a bit of a scare for starting pitcher Felix Doubront before the game when he was hit in the ear with an errant fly ball during the pregame. He was examined by the team’s medical staff and declared okay. “I’m good. Ready to go,” he said.
Follow us on Pinterest Google + Facebook Twitter See It Read It