Beckett's first start (April 4)

I was very encouraged by Josh Beckett's first start of the season yesterday. While the results weren't all there, I liked his approach much better than his general approach last year. Here are some of my observations:

-Beckett was using his curve much more often than he did last year. Some were very good, but he was having difficulty locating it. It almost seemed he was being stubborn with it in the same way he would be stubborn with his fastball last year. It's like Francona and Farrell told him to throw more curves so he did even though he couldn't locate it that well. Fortunately most were down in the zone and the hitters weren't expecting so many of them, so none got hit hard. All the balls contributed to his high pitch count though.

-His fastball was very good. I remember one AB in particular, perhaps against Teahen, where he fell behind 3-0 and then threw three fastballs right by him, the first two swinging and the last looking. He also was great at keeping the fastball down in the zone, even getting a number of called strikes at the knes.

-Since his fastball was so good and he couldn't locate his curve, I would have liked to have seen him throw the fastball a bit more and pitch to contact more than he did. There's just little reason to go to 3-2 counts on Tony Pena Jr. and Ross Gload. If it was against the Yankees I would be happy with 5 innings and 1 run allowed, but against the Royals I'd like to rest our bullpen a bit more. Of course, we have 7 guys in the bullpen right now, a lot of off days and probably some rainouts, so I guess I have no reason to complain unless this trend continues in later starts, which I doubt it will.

-I try to remain as objective as possible about Manny, but I'm fairly sure his defense cost us a base on the Gload double and maybe a hit on the ball that fell in that he kind of slowed up on later (I forget the batter).

-Varitek is 1-7 on the year, but he hit a ball very well that DeJesus caught on the warning track. On a warmer night I bet that one leaves the yard. I still don't have a lot of hope for him but that was encouraging.

Of course, all eyes are on Matsuzaka today. Including mine. Look for updates later.