Which was good, especially last night, his four hits (three doubles) combining with Ellsbury's two home runs and bunt single to buoy the Red Sox on a night that could have been a lost cause, and instead turned into a 7-6 win over the Angels at Fenway Park.
Witness the pregame frustration for Josh Beckett, who missed out on his fourth start of the season, coming up with a stiff neck yesterday afternoon. With the Red Sox on alert because of Beckett's bout with the current clubhouse illness - it has also hit Manny Delcarmen and Jason Varitek, along with a couple of coaches - the starter turned up with the unanticipated neck problem, leading to a bit of a change. David Pauley, already waiting in a Boston hotel, got the word around 4 p.m. that he would be the night's starter.
"We were worried about Beckett the last couple days because he had been sick," said manager Terry Francona before the game. "He showed up today and we had talked to him last night and this morning, and that was not an issue, but his neck got real stiff.
"Whether it's related or not, how do you know? But we're not going to run him out there and have him potentially hurt his shoulder because he's got a stiff neck."
After the game, Francona said his guess would be that Beckett's turn in the rotation would be skipped, keeping him on his normal day, which would be Sunday against Tampa Bay. But there will be another evaluation today.
And though he might have been missed early by the crowd of 37,982, he wasn't missed quite so much late. Ellsbury took care of that, hitting two solo home runs, the first to lead off the game for the first time in his career, and the second with two outs in the sixth, breaking a 5-5 tie. It was an evening that prompted Francona to label him "Damonesque."
To that, he added the bunt single in the eighth, which put him on first base for Pedroia. Having already hit two doubles and a single, Pedroia (.364, tops in the American League) took advantage of the extra attention Scot Shields paid to Ellsbury on first base, rifling a double down the left-field line that scored the center fielder with the seventh run.
