Before the Boston Red Sox departed for Anaheim in the late afternoon yesterday, they held an optional workout at Fenway Park along with a rally afterward. Obviously the biggest thing people wanted to know is how is Josh Beckett feeling. Beckett did not speak with the media yesterday and Terry Francona had nothing new to offer up either.
I think I talked about it last night at 10:30. I’m not sure what you really want to have happen between now and then. Although he does feel better, the idea would be for him to play catch tomorrow and have a side on Thursday. Again, there’s not a lot that can happen from my side to you guys from 11 o’clock until now.
I don’t know that you ever fully know the grade of something until it’s over – unless there’s some bleeding, which there isn’t. I don’t think its so much the grade as how quickly it goes away so he can pitch effectively – that’s more important.
Francona also spoke about the status of Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew as well.
He (Lowell) came out today and actually did pretty well. Hitting is not really the problem. In fact, I think he said that’s really the easy part. It’s some of the lateral movement and I don’t know if its starting and stopping – somewhat stopping, change of direction, things like that while he’s rotating, but he did have a pretty good day. We’ll try to answer some questions tomorrow – we don’t need to have the Olympics out there, but we need to see what’s going on. I think he does too. I think we’re all on the same page with this – in fact I know we are – but tomorrow certainly is an important day. We were not allowed to take ground balls. That was kind of a tradeoff for having the field because of what they went through yesterday and then with some of the work they’re doing. We weren’t planning on having the field, but because we were out there so little for practice time, that was kind of a tradeoff that we wouldn’t take ground balls in the infield – it was pretty chopped up.
J.D. did ok. He came out. Again, today was optional and he felt good enough to be able to participate in BP which was really a good sign.
We should know more today about the status of Beckett as he is scheduled to play catch in Anaheim during the workout this afternoon. We should also learn the roster either sometime late today or tonight as the roster has to be in by midnight.
The Red Sox are confident with or without Josh Beckett.
Angels manager Mike Scioscia says Boston’s pitching is their key to success.
Art Martone of the Providence Journal brought up a good point yesterday. If the Angels had known Beckett wasn’t going to start Game 1, would they have chosen to start on Thursday?
Mark Teixiera is looking forward to his first trip to the postseason.
Jonathan Van Every is happy to have a chance to be on the Red Sox postseason roster.
Francisco Rodriguez should garner some accolades for his performance this season.
Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald offers up his 2008 Boston Red Sox regular season report card.
Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe was able to sit down with Daisuke Matsuzaka in a rare one-on-one (actually one-on-two since he needs an interpreter) interview.
Gary Marbry of WEEI.com offers up some postseason nuggets.
If you want to tell the Curly Haired Boyfriend how much he sucks, he’s scheduled to chat over at Boston.com at noon today.
For more slices of Boston Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hartford Courant and Providence Journal websites.
And if you must see what the enemy papers are saying you can check out the LA Times, Orange County Register and LA Daily News websites.
