Sports Redux: Hey Now, Hey Now, Our Beckett's Back

Think about it: Josh Beckett's been out of the Boston Red Sox lineup for a couple of weeks. He missed two starts and generated some genuine worry over the cut on his finger that taught a few million baseball fans what "avulsion" meant. One couldn't expect a super top-notch showing from a guy just getting back into the groove, right?

Seven innings, seven strikeouts, one walk, three hits. Oh, and he's the first Red Sox pitcher since that Clemens guy (circa '86) to win his first eight decisions. Guess Beckett felt good to be back on the mound - which in turn benefited Boston in its 4-2 victory over Cleveland.

Tuesday was a day of team history notes all around - Beckett's 8-0 was coupled with Kevin Youkilis's ninth consecutive multiple hit game, a feat that was last executed by Jim Rice in 1978. Youk homered and hit a double and is now 21 games into a sweet hitting streak.

That offense made up for the worrisome absence of David Ortiz, who has now been missing from three games' lineups. The word is that he has a "barking" hamstring situation - if you know what that means, we're all ears (we're just imagining a small puppy in his leg, and that's not good).

-- The Yankees, however, lost their fifth consecutive game, as Toronto edged out New York 3-2. For those doing the math (we know, that means all of you), that puts Boston ahead by 14 1/2. We're nowhere near shouting "It's OVER" in the manner that Joe Castiglione did last night, but our eyes are lighting up a little bit.

-- Marquise Hill's death was determined an accidental drowning on Tuesday, according to the initial coroner's report. Although about two weeks might be needed for all of the results to come back from various tests, there did not appear to be drugs or alcohol in Hill's system.

-- Memo to Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots: Vermont is in New England. Therefore, it's not wise to knock Vermont. The QB was quoted by People magazine today (in an excerpt from Details magazine) as saying: "People want to go out and travel around and meet cool people. I could just go live in Vermont, but is that what I really want?"

We touched base with some of our operatives within the Green Mountains to see what they thought of this statement. There were some good-natured jabs at Brady that referenced babies and Yankees caps. We'll leave it at that.

Image of Beckett from flickr user gmonster25