He was, through nearly two times through that lineup, before perfection ended with a ground single up the middle, one that rolled a few feet to Beckett's right and just past the second base bag. David Bell, who had been retired on a liner to third baseman Mike Lowell in the third, reversed his luck in the sixth against Beckett, a pitcher against whom he had a good deal of history ( 6 for 29), though not much of it good.
So the perfect game, through 16 batters and 71 pitches, was over, and all that was left was to finish off one of Beckett's best outings of the season, a 10-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies (after a 43-minute rain delay at the start) powered by two home runs and five RBIs for Manny Ramírez. It brought the Sox' winning streak to seven, their record in interleague play to 9-1, and all the questions about Beckett's standing as an ace -- remember those consecutive games against the Blue Jays and Yankees in which he allowed 14 earned runs? -- to a close.
``I think more exciting than [the run of perfection] was just the way he was pitching," manager Terry Francona said, after Beckett went eight innings, allowing three hits and two walks, while striking out eight with no walks, and lowered his ERA from 5.09 to 4.84. ``Two-seamed his fastball, threw his breaking ball very effectively, threw some real good changeups. He pitched. He elevated his fastball, used both sides of the plate with his fastball, threw a couple breaking balls in hitters' counts. Just really pitched effectively. Took the sting out of some pretty good hitters' bats."
Until Chase Utley hit a mistake pitch -- ``middle, middle," Beckett said -- for a two-run homer to the Sox' bullpen in right, Beckett had gotten through six innings by facing the minimum (Bell was retired on a 5-4-3 double play). Beckett retired the last six batters he faced, getting Bell to foul out to third on his 104th and final pitch.
