So there he was last night, standing on the mound at Rangers Ballpark at Arlington, looking in to face Joaquin Arias, his first batter in nearly three weeks.
He threw a fastball, and it was on.
That's not to say concerns didn't remain before last night's game. "I think your first time out, it's hard not to [have them]," Beckett said.
He threw a fastball and another and another and, after four or five pitches, he wasn't nearly as worried. He could pitch, now. And he did, getting through five scoreless innings as the Red Sox drubbed the Rangers, 8-1, in front of 30,264 people.
"You're always concerned," said Beckett after the Sox defeated the Rangers for the eighth time. "You don't want [the injury] to come back your first start back.
"Generally, you're going down and doing it on a minor league field, where things are a little more controlled. We're still trying to win games here. It's not one of those deals where you want to go out there and, five pitches in, it comes back. Yeah, there's concern. It's my arm."
And, last night his arm was solid. Though he wasn't perfect, Beckett was something more important. He was effective. Throwing a heavy dose of fastballs early - 27 of his first 30 pitches, nearly all at 93 miles per hour - Beckett got through the Rangers the first time around without allowing a base runner.
He got through two more innings and departed after 80 pitches (49 strikes). That seemed to be more than manager Terry Francona or general manager Theo Epstein expected, but reassured by the training staff, Beckett was allowed to pitch through the fifth, setting him up for the win, his first since Aug. 11
"Talking to [assistant trainer] Mike Reinold, he thought we were being overly conservative, which I was happy to hear," Francona said. "Me and John [Farrell], I think our plan was to hold him a little short of that. Mike said there was really no reason to."
