The Pitcher Catcher Relationship

I read with interest today Pete Abraham's article at boston.com and Rob Bradford's article at weei.com, both of which dealt with the relationship between Josh Beckett and Victor Martinez. Or more specifically, how that relationship is getting better during spring training.

I'm sure you all remember that horrendous outing Josh had last August against The Blue Jays which marked the beginning of a bad streak that went on for a month. Martinez was behind the plate for that game and at the time I blamed it all on him. (Just for the record, I do really like Martinez. I just bought a Martinez shirt and I always have a thing for catchers. Yes, I'm looking at you Matt Weiters, even though you play for the Orioles.) But the next few starts were with Varitek so it was hard to lay blame on Martinez's step.

In reading the two recent articles though, I think my initial reaction was probably right. Beckett gives his comfort level with Martinez a 7 on a scale of 1-10 right now. I think we can speculate that it was probably much lower last season. I for one would love to see Varitek catch for Beckett all the time but that's probably unrealistic. So it is heartening to see Martinez and Beckett working well together.

In 2006 Beckett struggled to get used to pitching to Vartiek and said later that he should have listened to Tek more. Apparently he did in 2007 and had his best season yet. Let's hope he doesn't take nearly so long to get used to Martinez.