Starting Five: Forget Big Papi, Josh Beckett Is Officially Back

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the Yankees are a .654 team against everyone else, but a .000 team when they face the Red Sox. Yes, Boston and New York hooked up for their third series of the season beginning Tuesday night, but despite the Yankees' surge up the AL East standings since the last time the rivals met, they dropped to 0-6 against the Sox this season.

Much of the focus in New England will be on David Ortiz, who cranked a two-run home run to straightaway center field, ran his hitting streak to seven games and maybe, just maybe, is emerging from a bewildering two month-slump.

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"There's no getting around how important this is - I think everybody's acknowledged that, myself included," [Terry] Francona said of Ortiz igniting the team with his third home run of the season.

While much of the worry (disdain?) in the Big Apple will be directed at A.J. Burnett, who followed up a disastrous eight-run April outing at Fenway with a 2 2/3-inning clunker in the series opener.

But don't lose sight of Josh Beckett.

Beckett was Burnett's opponent way back on April 25 at the Fens, and he too surrendered eight runs that day. He closed the first month of the season with a 7.22 ERA, and, along with Jon Lester, was the cause of much consternation in Red Sox Nation, where they were expecting a two-headed monster at the top of the rotation, but for much of April and May got perplexingly bad performances from their two supremely talented pitchers.

The surly right-hander tossed six shutout innings Tuesday night, striking out eight and allowing one hit to pick up the win. While Burnett has continued to flounder, Beckett has clearly righted the ship, going 5-0 with a 1.70 ERA since the end of April. We all know what the Red Sox are capable of when Beckett is at his best.

From the Trainer's Room ...
The Twins sent center fielder Denard Span home from their West Coast road trip after dizziness that plagued him last month cropped up again in Minnesota's 10-5 win over the A's. Span came out of the game after striking out in the second inning because he "didn't even see the ball" during his at-bat. Doctors told Span a thyroid problem may have been the root cause of the dizziness when he first dealt with the problem last month.

Numbers Game ...
There was almost nothing ordinary about the Mets' latest meeting with the Phillies, but tops on the list has to be the four home runs surrendered by Johan Santana (in a game he won, no less). Santana surrendered four homers in a game only one other time in his career -- July 23, 2007 against the Blue Jays -- and he's allowed three-plus homers in a game just 11 times total in his 10 years in the big leagues. The oddities don't stop there.

In Their Own Words ...
"I just said 'Hey' to Dontrelle and he said 'Hey' and the next thing I knew the benches were empty and all hell was breaking loose. I got no problem with Dontrelle and I got no problem with anyone on that team." -- White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski explaining the "misunderstanding" between him and Tigers pitcher Dontrelle Willis that led to a bench-clearing incident in the bottom of the fourth inning of Detroit's 7-6 extra-inning win over Chicago. Miguel Cabrera snapped out of a slump with the decisive home run in the 10th for the Tigers.

Advance Scouting ...
If Nate McLouth playing his old team a week after he was traded by them just wasn't awkward enough for you, then tune in Wednesday night (7 PM ET) as the Pirates and Braves ratchet up the weirdness another notch. Not only will McLouth be facing the Bucs yet again, but Pittsburgh is calling up pitcher Charlie Morton to start the game. Morton was one of the three players traded by Atlanta for McLouth last week. He was 4-8 with a 6.15 ERA in 16 appearances (15 starts) for the Braves last season, but has not appeared in the major leagues yet in 2009.