Chatted a bit the other night with Sox pitching coach John Farrell about the recent two-start struggles for Josh Beckett. The Sox ace had allowed 10 home runs in his last three outings, and had allowed an unbelievable 18 hits and 15 earned runs in 13 1/3 un-Beckett innings against the Blue Jays and Yankees.

His fastballs were mis-located and tailing over the plate, and his curveballs have routinely been flatter than 2X4's at a carpenter's convention. The August downturn has become something of a pattern for Beckett over the course of his baseball seasons in a Red Sox uniform, as he's put up an 8-7 record with a 4.77 ERA and 17 home runs allowed in 122 1/3 innings pitched during August. It's easily been his worst month of the year during his time in Boston.
 
Farrell said that Beckett’s problem was more mechanical than physical, and his action of “reaching back” for a little extra oomph on the fastball and bite on the curveball had thrown of his normal, natural fluid delivery. The Sox pitching guru was expecting an entirely different Beckett on Friday night against the Blue Jays after streamlining Beckett’s delivery in bullpen sessions. The Sox pitching coach was also clear that Beckett's right arm is healthy, and there's nothing injury-related that's affecting the hard-throwing Texan during this August swoon.

Here’s Farrell:
“His delivery got a little long and spread out. He lost a little bit of the downward plane on his fastball and that caused his curveball to be recognized out of his hand early. He also went through a 3 ½ month stretch there where he just basically dominated the bottom half of the strike zone and dominated it in a way with the flight of his baseball going downward on his two-seamer and dominating with the lateral movement.”

What can you do to counteract things when Beckett’s delivery gets a little bit on the long side? JF: This is a case where it’s not a flaw in his delivery, but in his case there can be a little extra exertion to try to get a little more velocity or more bit on his curveball. This can cause his delivery to get long and spread out and it’s not unlike a hitter that’s trying to get a home run every time up there when he flaps on the backside and starts swinging uphill. There are a lot of similarities to that.

So part of it is just getting Beckett to relax and ease up a bit on the pitcher’s mound? JF: We spend a lot of time with every pitcher trying to quiet the mind, and he even has a saying that ‘less is more’. Because when they try to get more that’s when they work against their natural body movements and their delivery is inefficient and they can sacrifice command in an effort to gain velocity.