BOSTONJosh Beckett said his lat, which is keeping him from making his scheduled start tomorrow, is feeling better. Beckett will skip this start, but is expected to make his next one.
Its kind of been there for about a week, kind of leading into my last start, he said before Fridays game against the Orioles at Fenway Park. You can always on your start day make yourself believe that things are better than they are. I really want to pitch and ended up making things worse.
You dont really give yourself a chance to think about that stuff when youre out there. For me it was kind ofmy start days different than any other day. I can convince myself whatever I need to do. I wanted to pitch and probably should have been a little smarter before my start and should have brought something up.
Beckett said his back started bothering him after his last start, with the soreness much worse than normal. He threw 126 pitches, matching a career high, in a loss to the White Sox on April 29. Beckett is 2-3 with a 4.38 ERA.
With the availability of Aaron Cookand the need to call him up from Triple-A Pawtucket or risk losing him -- the decision to skip Becketts start was made for him.
Which I guess is good, he said. They really didn't give me a choice in it. Manager Bobby Valentine came into the training room and said, Hey, you're going to miss a start. I mean, it wasnt totally shocking when he came in and said it because it was something that was discussed before that. It felt a lot better today so Im pretty optimistic that this next starts going to be fine.
I threw today, 90 feet. Went better. Felt a lot better today than I did the day before my last start.
Boston Red Sox
Friday was the first day hes thrown since his last start, and hes expected to throw again on Saturday.
Hopefully everything goes good, he said. Well see how things progress. If I come in feeling bad tomorrow, Ill probably back off a little bit.