“I’d be lying if I sat here and said I didn’t think about that,” he said. “I had a good year, but there are some other guys that have had good years, too.”
Josh Beckett said the above, when pressed, in regards to his potential Cy Young award candidacy last night after his final start of 2007. Truth be told, Josh Beckett has had a superlative year. An exceptional year. By all accounts, a Cy Young winning year. He has been the backbone of this Red Sox team, the most consistently strong and poised performer on the team that has had the best record in baseball throughout the majority of the season.
Beckett could be counted on for a strong start when we needed it. He did not allow more than three earned runs in back to back starts this season. Twenty of his thirty games were quality starts. He walked nobody in eight of his starts, and allowed only one base on balls in eight other starts. He was even stronger on the road than he was at home, proof of how intense his focus was. In thirteen road starts, he was 11-2 with a 2.18 ERA. At the All-Star break he was 12-2 with a 3.48 ERA, and actually had a stronger second half than first despite going 8-5 after the break: he posted a 3.10 ERA in the season’s second half, without missing a start, and 102 strikeouts to just nineteen walks (as opposed to ninety-two and twenty-one before the break). He stepped up his game in both the season’s first few weeks, as this team’s identity was taking shape, and in the season’s last month when the tightening AL East gap required it. In April and September, Beckett went 9-1 with a 2.83 ERA. Pitching on short rest, his game simply improved: he had four starts this year of 8+ innings pitched and two or fewer earned runs on four days of rest.
Beckett’s early-season performance last year earned him an extension, but he proceeded to have a rocky second half of the season (a mirror of the Red Sox as a team). It was looking like a low point in the otherwise grand Theo Epstein era, as fellow free agent acquisition Edgar Renteria and Hanley Ramirez, the hotshot prospect traded for Beckett and Mike Lowell, was on his way to winning the National League Rookie of the Year award. Beckett’s turnaround this year, though, and Renteria’s performance after being released have validated those moves, though. Even Lowell, the throw-in contract in the Beckett deal, has had a career season. The second-year successes of these players also suggest the possibility of turnaround for this year’s batch of free-agent disappointments, Julio Lugo and J.D. Drew.
And how much has Beckett improved from last season? His fifteen home runs allowed are less than half of the thirty-six he allowed in 2006. His ERA is actually almost two full runs lower. His control has been much better as well, not only in that his forty walks represents just over half of his total from a year ago, but also in that his wild pitches went from eleven down to three and his hit batsmen down from ten to five. He struck out thirty-six more hitters in four fewer innings. Most importantly, he has stayed healthy. He has missed only three scheduled starts all season, and all three of those were in the season’s first half. His blister issue, which has been a nagging injury in the past, was either well handed or well ignored by Beckett. That he took the time off when needed, showing his understanding of the occasional necessity in baseball of sacrificing a short-term gain for long-term success, is further evidence of his maturation process. And his health was certainly tested: he didn’t throw fewer than 105 pitches in any start after the All Star break until last night, and ended up throwing 110 pitches or more in ten of his final fourteen starts.
In my mind, the Cy Young race is down to two candidates, C.C. Sabathia and Josh Beckett. They have had strikingly similar seasons, with Beckett’s win totals aided by the additional 1.5 runs in support of his starts. Beckett has had more rotation support and thus less pressure to succeed, but has also had tougher competition in having to face the powerful lineups of the A.L. East more frequently. Basically, it’s a dead heat. If this were a Most Valuable Pitcher award, Sabathia would receive it. If it were a Best Season by a Pitcher award, Beckett would win it. That the Cy Young lays somewhere in the middle of those two confirms how tight of a race it should be.
In any case, Terry Francona will shelf Josh Beckett until the playoffs. He should be the game one starter against either the Indians or Angels. If the former is the case, we will probably see a showdown between the Cy Young finalists. Good luck, Josh. And thanks again for a memorable season.