Old School Beckett

Well, that was a nice thing to see last night.

With a dominant performance from former/future ace Josh Beckett, the Sox were able to beat the Yankees, take two out of three games in the series and inject a spark of hope into Boston fans everywhere. And while wins in April are as important as wins in September, it is important to keep perspective. Boston still has 153 games left to play and are only four games back, not fourteen. Crawford and Youk will not continue to have sub-.200 batting averages.

And we may be getting back the Josh Beckett we all know and love.

What makes this important is that Beckett didn't win this game against the Royals or the Mariners. He took apart a team that owned him last year. He outpitched one of the contenders for the 2010 CY Young award. And he did it easily.

Eight innings, only two hits, ten strikeouts and one walk. Most importantly, no runs. Here's some perspective. The last game Beckett had 10 strikeouts or more was July 27, 2009 against Oakland. The last game Beckett didn't give up an earned run was almost exactly a year ago. He got a no-decision in a 3-1 loss to the Rays on April 16, 2010. And the last time he did both in a single game? Try April 10, 2005, when he pitched a complete game, 11 strikeout shutout for the Marlins against the Washington Nationals. So this was an impressive performance by the standards of his own career.

As always, the big question is whether Beckett can continue to perform at this level. Only one time in 2010 was he able to record back-to-back wins. Hopefully that will not be the case in 2011.

But if Beckett can return to form while Lester and Buchholz get back in the groove, that will go a long way towards erasing an ugly opening week for the Sox.