Coco Crisp's web gem in the outfield, Dustin Pedroia's slumpbusting double, J.D. Drew's continued (surprising) slugfest and Manny Ramirez mashing #505 were the highlights.
Josh Beckett's disturbing second inning, the lackluster bottom half of the batting order (going a combined 0-fer-17) and the largely craptacular bullpen (we're looking at you, Hideki Okajima) were the lowlights. Oh, and getting clobbered by the O-birds at home in Fenway - that part sucked, too.
Beckett was quite placid after the game - at least, in the bits of the press conference that made it past the censors and on to NESN. Before the game, he was a little more candid with Rob Bradford:
I see someone's been reading my posts here at Center Field detailing Josh's "executing pitches" mantra. (And here, here, here, here and here.) But dear Josh, I have never (and would never) call you a cliche. I kid because I love, Josh - I kid because I love."You come into the season and it's one start at a time, one pitch at a time," [Beckett] said. "I try and stay fairly consistent. If I have a (shitty) outing, I'm not going to say 'Aw (shit), I'm not going to lift legs today. It didn't work last time.' I try and stay consistent, win, lose or draw. I try and be a consistent teammate, and be consistent with my work. That's what makes me feel comfortable. I want to be able to feel that I did all of it to prepare for a certain moment and then I can just let it go."The thing I go out and try to do is focus pitch to pitch, execute pitch to pitch. I know people get tired of me saying that, saying that it's a cliche. But it's not a cliche. It's about executing (fucking) pitches. If you execute a high number of pitches you get outs and we're trying to get as many outs as possible."
But those silver sunglasses have (still) got to go.
on June 11, 2008 4:32 AM
And, yes, he's wearing yet another Texas music tshirt - this time, it's Zona Jones.