Terry Francona announced the first slate of starting pitchers for the upcoming Spring Training games today:
Wednesday vs. Boston College: Josh Beckett
Wednesday at Minnesota: Tim Wakefield
Thursday vs. Pittsburgh: Jon Lester
Friday at Tampa Bay: Michael Bowden
Saturday vs. Northeastern: Kris Johnson
Saturday vs. Cincinnati: Clay Buchholz
It's not much, but it's something, right? Michael bowden, Kris Johnson and Clay Buchholz will get an early shot to prove their worth to Terry Francona and others in the Sox organization. For Josh Beckett, Tim Wakefield and Jon Lester, they are just going through the normal motions.
My favorite part of the spring is to watch guys like Bowden, Johnson and Buchholz to see how they do against (kinda) major league hitting. I'll keep an eye on guys like Beckett, but for the most part their performances don't mean much unless coming off major injury problems. And rememeber, we'll probably only see two or three innings out of these pitchers at this point. Don't expect a huge sample size to judge their performances.