FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) -Josh Beckett and the Boston Red Sox were in October form during their exhibition opener.
Baseball’s only 20-game winner last year didn’t care that his first opponent of spring training was a Boston College team that had been working out indoors all winter to escape the cold and snow up north.
The Red Sox ace only cared about keeping batters from making contact and refining his pitches on a relatively chilly (58 degrees) Florida day. He retired all six hitters he faced, four on strikeouts, in Boston’s 24-0 victory in seven innings Thursday.
AL Rookie of the Year Dustin Pedroia hit a two-run double, and a Red Sox split squad picked up right where the team left off last October when it swept Colorado for its second World Series title in four years.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re playing in a media game or a college team or facing big league hitters. I actually told somebody that today,” Beckett said. “They told me, `You’re going to at least let somebody hit it.”’
His response?
“No, I’m not going to let him hit it. I’m out there trying to do my job and my job right now is to get in shape for the season,” last year’s AL Cy Young Award runner-up said. “If I’m out there facing a college team and I’m out there messing around or something, I might take that into another game.
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
Beckett threw 25 pitches in two innings, 18 for strikes, then threw 17 more after he left the game, including eight or nine good curveballs. He wasn’t pleased with his curve against BC.
“I thought he threw some good ones,” catcher Jason Varitek said. “I don’t say he threw them for strikes. He threw some good ones at the bottom of the zone so that was good … but it’s early and he didn’t quite have the feel that he wanted for it.”
Another Red Sox split squad was set to play Northeastern on Thursday night.
Daisuke Matsuzaka started the game against BC last season and allowed a double on his first pitch in a Red Sox uniform to Johnny Ayers, also an outstanding punter for the Eagles football team. Boston won 9-1.
On Thursday, Beckett struck out leadoff hitter Ryan Akel on four pitches. In the second inning, he fanned Mike Augustine on three.
The Red Sox scored their first eight runs in the second on five hits, six walks, a wild pitch and an error. They added five in the fourth and nine in the fifth before finishing with two in the sixth. The previous high for runs scored by the Red Sox in their annual exhibition series with Boston College was 22 in 1996.
“We obviously don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. “What we set out to do, I thought worked very well.”
He wanted five pitchers to get their work in and his starters to get two at-bats each.
Non-roster player Tony Granadillo hit a grand slam, Brandon Moss went 3-for-3 with three RBIs and minor league catcher George Kottaras drove in three runs.
Pedroia doubled in two runs in the second, then was replaced by Granadillo.
The scrappy Pedroia said he never played an exhibition game against a major league team when he was at Arizona State.
But, if he did, “we might have put a whupping on somebody,” he said with a smile as he left the clubhouse. “That’s how I’d have handled it.”
Notes: Francona said RHP Bartolo Colon’s first start probably would be against a major league team rather than Red Sox minor leaguers. The original plan was for his first game to be on March 15, but that might be moved up. … Fun-loving closer Jonathan Papelbon was given permission to leave camp to speak at Mississippi State, where he pitched. The subject? “I don’t even want to know,” Francona said.
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