Beckett Goes Four Strong Against Marlins
BOSTON (CBS) – Red Sox starter Josh Beckett put together another solid spring outing on Monday, going four innings against the Miami Marlins.
Beckett got his third start of the spring, allowing one run off three hits against Miami at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Florida. He struck out three while walking two and hitting a pair of batters. In all, Beckett threw 19 of his 27 pitches for strikes.
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The Sox righty ran into some trouble in the first inning after getting Jose Reyes to ground out on the games' first pitch. Emilio Bonifacio doubled off Beckett, who then sandwiched his pair of hit batters between an Austin Kearns strike out to load the bases. With two outs and the bases full of Marlins, Beckett walked in the games' first run, but was able to bounce back and get Terry Tiffee to ground out to second to limit the damage.
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It was smooth sailing for Beckett after that. He walked Matt Dominguez to start the second inning, but set down the next nine batters in order to close his day. Beckett said after the game he had a good feel on his curveball, a pitch he was focusing on after working on his change up the two previous starts.
"I thought I had a pretty good feel for it," he said of his curve, the pitch he got Kearns on in the second. "I hit the guy with one, but some of the ones I'm trying to bounce, I'm trying to bounce them. A lot of times we talk about arm strength, you actually have to have more arm strength to spin a breaking ball than you do a fastball because you're powering the outside of the ball. I think that's why, a lot of the times when you come to spring training you don't have a real good feel for your curveball. So building up arm strength and stuff like that is really key for spinning the ball."
Beckett now has nine innings of work under his belt, allowing just four hits and one run this spring.
