Francona on Beckett

The following is Terry Francona answering questions tonight about Josh Beckett's right oblique strain and his playoff availability:

Q: Oblique injuries can be tricky. How confident are you Josh will pitch Game 3?
A: I don’t think we would slot him in. Now certainly, if it goes the wrong way, we’re going to use pretty good, hopefully very good, judgment. But I think that we’re slotting him in there because we think he can pitch there. I don’t think – Friday was actually discussed. I think after Theo [Epstein] and I and John Farrell talked about it more and more and more, we thought that was pushing it. Because then you’re messing around with maybe cutting short a side session. It’s not just health, but it’s competing also. He has to be able to go out there and execute his pitches. I think he’s going to be OK.

Q: Do you have contingency plan in place?
A: Yeah, we will. We don’t even have our roster set yet. We don’t need to do that. I’d never tell you guys before any players know. That wouldn’t be good.

Q: How frustrating is this for you and for Josh?
A: I don’t think it’s frustrating. Things happen and you deal with him. If you deal with them well enough, you handle it. If you don’t, you go home. I don’t know. Things happen. You have to deal with them and find a way to win. I think Lester and Daisuke will do just fine.

Q: Have you discussed Tim Wakefield's postseason role?
A: We have. And again, there’s some uncertainty with some things. He understands what’s going on. Some of his stuff also will relate to other people. We can a little bit more tomorrow about some of that stuff. But we’re not going to have a roster until it’s probably time to have a roster.

Q: Will you still have 10 pitchers on the playoff roster?
A: We don’t know what our roster. Won’t know until we’re ready. We have a lot things we have to look at, with Lowell, with Drew, Beckett. We just don’t think it makes sense to make a decision on Sunday night when we don’t have to until Wednesday morning. We’ll regroup, have a lot of guys come out tomorrow. We’ll get on the plane and get out there and get ourselves out there and make, hopefully, very good decisions.

Q: Has Josh tweaked this before?
A: I can’t speak for in his lifetime. Has he been battling this? No. I didn’t even ask him [if it’s happened ever before.] I think he has. I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Q: Do you know which side?
A: I think it was his right side. It was on his 40th pitch [of his side session Friday]. Because it was raining and things like that, he was almost done. I don’t think it actually was something where he just threw it and grabbed it. It was almost in between pitchers, where he took a deep breath and, ‘Man, I feel something.’ He went and got treatment. They’ve been working on him. Initially, when you hear something like that, you’re kind of like, ‘Damn.’ [A team doctor] came in and goes, ‘Hey, relax. We’ll be alright.’ So that was kind of reassuring.

A: Will he go to Anaheim?
Q: Yeah. He’ll throw a side on Thursday.