Josh Beckett's injury

Josh Beckett wanted to keep it a mystery. It’s the same thing I kept telling the coaching staff, the training staff,” said the Red Sox starter following his team’s elimination from the American League Championship Series, “I just said, ‘Terrific.’ It was what it was.”

There were those words, and then there was the reality. And that, despite the best efforts of Beckett, he admits was almost impossible to completely disguise. Everybody,” said Beckett, referencing his teammates, “knows what I’ve gone through.” This much became evident after the question marks were cleared …

Beckett was planning to fight off his lingering oblique injury and pitch in the World Series, albeit with more ‘help’ than he had been administered prior to his American League Division Series outing. “I would have made my next start, although it would have been done through chemistry,” he said, referencing the kind of cortisone shot he received after initially injuring his oblique. “And I know I would have needed more chemistry than I had last time.”
When Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein describes Beckett’s five-inning performance in Game 6 as “borderline heroic” it is with good reason.

Beyond the fact that he had to adjust his game to the point of throwing nearly 40 percent off-speed pitches because of the ailment, there was the immense obstacle that the pain presented.
Even with the assistance of pain-relieving medication following the ALCS win, Beckett still struggled to put his shirt on just before getting exiting the Tropicana Field visitors’ clubhouse.