Beckett was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained right elbow retroactive to his last start two Sundays ago at Fenway Park, and will be eligible to come off the DL on Tuesday. Francona said they'll give Beckett a few days to recover from testing that included having dye injected into his elbow -- a standard procedure during an MRI -- and he's scheduled to make the start a week from today in Texas.

"Everything was clean," said Francona. "There were a number of tests and Josh came through with flying colors. As Theo stated yesterday we kind of wanted to get some closure. When Josh threw the other day I got so excited about the way he threw the ball.

"We all felt like this was the right thing to do. When you're a pitcher throwing about 97 [mph], it's nice to know that you're going to be okay. I think we all feel good about the way we did it." 

The Beckett development qualifies as great news for the Red Sox and their World Series hopes in 2008, but there had to be something going on in an elbow to necessitate a team's ace getting shut down for the nearly three weeks [and perhaps more if he's still not ready to make the start in Texas next week]. A strained right elbow isn't awesome news when it comes to a Major League pitcher, but it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Stay tuned to this one, as I surely will be.