The good news is that Josh Beckett returned to live game action after dealing with an undisclosed illness.  The bad news – the Pirates really took it to the Red Sox ace, touching him for 4 earned runs on 6 hits and 2 walks (including 1 home run) over 3 1/3 innings.  Beckett had been bedridden for 4 days dealing with a flu/virus bug that has hit the team hard this spring (Jed Lowrie was even diagnosed with mononucleosis).  But Beckett was just pleased to be out there — “The most important thing today was getting my pitches in.  Obviously, it would have been nice to take 70 pitches further than 3 1/3 innings, but we got out work in… That’s why I like to get my workouts in — it makes me feel better about my start.  I don’t really feel like I was completely prepared for this start.  I went out there and did what I needed to do… I don’t think it will be a problem.  I think we’ve got two or three more starts.  Hopefully I feel good enough Saturday to go in and get everything in and get a full week in this week.”

Couple of positives out of the hitters.  David Ortiz had 2 hits including a 2-run home run and is now hitting .276 this spring.  Dustin Pedroia and Mike Cameron each had 1 hit and each player is batting .333 on the spring.  Back-up outfielder Jeremy Hermida continues to rake (.357 batting average) and he looks like he is ready to play a valuable reserve for the Red Sox during the 2010 MLB schedule.

The loss hurts, but it’s great to see Beckett back in action.  We do not need any lingering issues with Beckett for the 2010 MLB season…

Clay Buchholz has his sights set on making the major league roster as a starting pitcher when camp breaks in early April.  The ball club had the day off on Thursday, but the Red Sox had Buchholz pitch a minor league game against the Minnesota Twins’ Class A squad in order to keep Buchholz on his regular 5 days rest.  He turned in a solid outing – 4 innings pitched, no runs, no walks, 1 hit and 4 strikeouts.  He threw 31 of his 45 pitches for strikes and he even continued his workout after the game with a short bullpen session.  Buchholz clearly looks ready to stay with the team at the start of the 2010 MLB schedule unlike in 2009 when he took a bat seat to veterans John Smoltz and Brad Penny.

Buchholz is excited about his opportunity to contribute at the major league level once again — “I tried to take it as the same outing as if I was pitching against Tampa Bay or New York or whoever.  Sometimes it’s good to come out here and pitch… But I felt really good physcially — got to use all my pitches, got through 4 innings and got some work in.  That’s basically the main reason why I threw today — stay on 5 days and get the work on… I don’t know what’s going to happen after that.  I’m just going to go out and pitch every day, or every day they give me the ball, and try to do what I have to do to succeed and get better every time I go out.  That’s how I have to look at it.”

Buchholz has the right attitude, plus he has phenomenal stuff.  With both Tim Wakefield and Daisuke Matsuzaka returning from off-season injuries, I find it hard to believe that Manager Terry Francona won’t find a regular spot for him in the rotation in 2010.  There is no room for error in 2010, so if Buchholz if the best pitcher out of the 3, then Francona should make sure that he’s out there every 5th day.  He shouldn’t sit behind Wakefield or Dice-K simply because those guys are “starters” and don’t have a lot of experience in the bullpen or shouldn’t have to go down to the “minors”.  The goal is to win and I really hope Francona makes sure that he gets Buchholz his reps during the regular season even after Wakefield and Matsuzaka both show that they are healthy.  One of those 2 guys should be the ones to suffer, NOT Buchholz…

John Lackey is really living up to they hype — he threw 4 scoreless innings against the New York Mets on Wednesday, giving up just 2 hits and no walks with 3 strikeouts.  Talk about tough.  For the spring, he has now made 3 starts, pitching 9 scoreless innings while giving up a total of 5 hits and no walks.  Not too shabby.  As we have said before, if Lackey, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester pitch consistently well during the 2010 MLB schedule, the Red Sox are going to win a lot of season series and they are going to be considered one of the 2 top teams in all of baseball – the other being the New York Yankees of course.

To make matters even better, a few relievers keep throwing solid, meaningful innings.

Jonathan Papelbon threw another scoreless inning in the game – he has yet to give up a run this spring.

Hideki Okajima and Daniel Bard each tossed scoreless innings in the game as well and each pitcher is sporting a nifty 1.80 ERA this spring.

The only reliever that seems to be struggling as of late is Ramon Ramirez.  His job is probably still safe, but he has been tagged for 6 ER on 5 hits and 4 walks in 4 innings pitched this spring.  He didn’t even record an out in the game as the Mets rallied for 4 runs off of Ramirez to win the game.  Not good at all.

We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything out of Manager Terry Francona regarding Ramirez or Manny Delcarmen’s spring performances.

Michael Bowden pitched 2 innings giving up 1 earned run on 2 hits, while striking out 2.

The Red Sox bats were a little bit “too quiet” again, as the team managed jut 4 total hits off of Roy Oswalt and 5 Astros’ relievers.  When the Red Sox do get base runners, they have had some issues driving in runs in bunches.  This was a problem for the Red Sox at times in 2009, so let’s hope things start turning around sometime soon.  The team has won more than it has lost this spring (8-7 record), but it would be nice to see that difference spread a little bit more over the final 2+ weeks of spring training…

Red Sox pitchers struggled in the team’s 8-4 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Monday in Fort Myers.  Tim Wakefield gave up 5 earned runs on a whopping 9 hits in just 3 2/3 innings pitched.  Although the box score was ugly, Wakefield tried to take away a few positives from the outing — “Physically, I felt great.  I was able to get up and down 4 times without a problem.  Obviously, the results weren’t what I wanted them to be, but it’s Spring Training.  I was able to work out of the stretch a bunch, which I needed to do.  I made some good quality pitches when I needed to… I felt really good at the start of the game, then out of the stretch I was trying to be too quick, changing speeds in my time to home, trying to keep the runner at first. Today, a couple of slide steps got away from me, kept the ball up, especially to Luke Scott.  Sometimes it’s hard to slow it back down.”

After Wakefield’s poor outing, 2 relievers also struggled.  Hideki Okajima gave up 1 earned run on 2 hits in his 1 inning of work.  He did have 2 K’s.  Ramon Ramirez gave up 2 earned runs on 2 hits courtesy of Brett Snyder’s 2-run bomb.

Two positives — Jonathan Papelbon continued his perfect spring throwing a scoreless inning with 1 strikeout.  Daniel Bard also looked sharp – striking out the side in his 1-2-3 inning of work.

The Red Sox struck for 12 hits and 5 walks, but managed just 4 runs as the team left way too many batters on base…

Josh Beckett missed his scheduled turn in the rotation on Sunday.  He is battling some sort of flu or virus, so the club did not want to take any chances with their ace.  It does not appear to be arm or leg related or any other pitching related injury.

This is very strange.  Let’s hope GM Theo Epstein and his staff aren’t trying to cover anything up a la Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick.  Manager Terry Francona had this to say about the injury – “He wasn’t feeling good at all.  The more we talked about it this morning at BP, we could tell he was battling it. I don’t know if we’d have gotten a lot of good to come our of it… The biggest thing we need to do is get him feeling better.  We’ve had a lot of guys that have been going through that the last week to 10 days.”

Right now, the plan is to have Beckett return to the mound against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday in Bardenton.  We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything different than that.

Finally – it seems like a long time ago when we 1st discussed whether the Red Sox would try to lock up soon-to-be free agent Josh Beckett this spring.  Well it looks like talks are in the works to keep Beckett in a Red Sox uniform in Boston for the foreseeable future.  This is GREAT news Red Sox fans!

Locking up the trio of Beckett, Jon Lester and John Lackey for the next 5 years would be a major advantage for the Red Sox.  To have 3 top notch starters at the front-end of your rotation really puts pressure on every one else in your division and league.  Plus, when you have young talented pitchers working their way through the minor league system as well, that enables you to place them into the less stressful 4th and 5th starter spots, or use them for trade bait to land solid position players.  This is big, big, big.

The Red Sox have a policy of not disclosing any details regarding contract negotiations, so this is all still speculative.  But suurces close to both sides have indicated that both sides are optimistic that a deal will be worked out before the start of the 2010 MLB season.

Beckett has won 65 games in 122 starts in 4 seasons with the Red Sox.  He has posted a 4.05 ERA as well.  Beckett dominated for the Red Sox through their 2007 World Series title run – going 4-0 with a dazzling 1.20 ERA.  Beckett loves the city of Boston and has made himself a fixture in the community in his short career with the Red Sox.

Let’s hope this gets done as planned.  We’ll keep you posted as soon as anything hits the wire…

So much for Daisuke Matsuzaka staying on track this spring.  A stiff neck forced Dice-K to miss a scheduled live batting practice session this morning.  He never even got to throw one single pitch because of the neck situation.  It would have been the first time that he faced live hitters this spring.  If all had gone well today, the red Sox planned to give Matsuzaka a Grapefruit League start on Wednesday of next week.  This clearly throws a wrench into those plans.

This is not good news Red Sox fans.  It seems like Daisuke is still dealing with lingering back and neck issues.  Fortunately, Clay Buchholz and Tim Wakefield have both been pitching well this spring.  If Daisuke doesn’t turn it around soon, we’ll likely see both Buchholz and Wakefield in the starting rotation until Matsuzaka proves that his body is ready to pitch every 5 days during a regular MLB baseball season.  As of now, no timetable has been set for his return, but we will keep you posted as soon as we hear anything.

John Lackey tossed 3 scoreless innings in the Red Sox 8-2 win over the New York Mets on Thursday afternoon.  Lackey gave up just 3 hits and no walks and he has not allowed  a run in both spring starts thus far.

Junichi Tazawa also worked 2 scoreless innings allowing just 1 walk while striking out 2.  The Red Sox are 6-3 this spring.

Jon Lester pitched much better in his 2nd start of the spring.  Even though the Red Sox ended up losing to the Tampa Rays 8-6, Lester shined during his 2 2/3 innings pitched.  He gave up just 1 unearned run on 2 hits and 1 walk.  Lester also struck out 4 batters on the day.  Lester also looked sharp and was in good command of all of his pitches, so it was a positive outing all-around.

Jonathan Papelbon worked another scoreless inning of relief giving up just a lone single.  Hideki Okajima, Ramon Ramirez and Daniel Bard also worked scoreless innings.  Ramirez and Bard each struck out 2 Rays as well.

The Red Sox bats showed up on fire as well.  Jacoby Ellsbury hit lead-off and went 2 for 3 with 2 home runs and 3 RBI’s.  Dustin Pedroia notched 2 more hits and is now batting .455 this spring.  Kevin Youkilis stroked 2 doubles with 1 RBI and 1 run scored.

Good news continues to pour in for the Red Sox this spring.  Lots of good pitching, solid hitting and numerous wins.  Can’t wait for April to get here – Fenway Park, Yankees – it doesn’t get any better than that!