Beckett should try getting more sink on his fastball. He just doesn't seem to have the ability to locate it with consistency. One inning he's hitting the black, the next, right down the middle. Some sink could really mask his mistakes. Call it a perk of possessing top shelf stuff. The thing that would worry me if I were a Sox fan: do more breaking balls result in a reoccurrence of the blister problems that dogged him with the Marlins?

here's some b-ref similarity score weirdness for you:

Anibal Sanchez's most similar through age 22: Ben McDonald
Josh Beckett's most similar through age 26: Ben McDonald

ok.... so, where is game chatter? there are games going on.

can anyone tell those of us who don't have red sox on tv how okajima looked in today's game? also, what happened to hernandez? how did donnelly look?

I think his ERA will be right around there, but I think the innings will go down to around 170 or so.

You know, I tried to find a game summary or a box score of the Sox first game on Redsox.com, but all there was was an article broken down in to sections like "Red Sox at Bat," "Twins pitching," etc. Only 2 Red Sox pitchers were discussed. Lousy.

Got this tidbit from BPro -- Beckett wore bandages on his 'blister' fingers when pitching on off days and it affected his ability to throw breaking stuff for strikes in games.

Until he can come up with a good solution for the blisters, he's not likely to fulfill his potential.