Josh Beckett threw 22 pitches, 15 for strikes, but even more telling was that eight of them were change-ups. First we will give you the entirety of his two-inning stint via video, then comes the transcription of what he said after …

Beckett’s thoughts after the performance …

“It was good. It was nice to get a little adrenaline. Obviously we’ve been facing hitters for six days now and I just think on those back fields that’s the only thing lacking. Obviously you have a hitter standing in there wiht a few elements you don’t generally deal with, be it batting cages and nets and things like that. It was nice to have the adrenaline. Even though it was a college team it was nice to have the adrenaline.”

“It was actually kind of nice because I wanted to come into the spring wanting to throw my change-up more during the spring to get a feel for it and it seemed like their lineup was kind of stack with lefties, at least the part that I went through.”

“I felt good last year when I pitched against Boston College, too.”

“I feel good right now.”

“I was actually just having a conversation with David Ortiz about that. It’s a lot easier to focus on what you’re trying to do when you’re not dealing with those little nagging things that end up being exterior distractions and take your focus on what you’re trying to do.”

“You can’t go out there and not think about what happened last year in my first outing (regarding his back injury). I definitely thought about it some coming in. I’m like, ‘Oh is this going to happen again?’ It was nice to get out of there and feel good.”

“It’s nice to go through a spring training knowing what you’re going to do every day and not have to deal with sitting in the trainers room for three or four extra hours and stuff like this. You just come in, get your work done and then your out here.”

“It’s a big feel pitch for me and the more I throw it the more I can command it the more I can take speed off of it, add speed to it. It’s a lot more feel pitch than my curveball is. I want to try and get in as many as I can that way I don’t have to be catching up with it in the regular season.”

(Regarding the change-ups) “You kind of go away from it because you don’t have the feel for it early in the year. Well if you go away from it early in the year and you don’t have the feel for it than you’re not going to get the feel for it.”

“I didn’t throw it much all year (in 2006). There were a bunch of different people saying it was too hard. Well, coming from the National League that was basically how I pitched was fastball-change-up and the curveball was kind of like a little out-pitch.”

(When his oblique injury started feeling better) “I think it was six or seven weeks. I just remember the first time I picked up a ball it didn’t feel great and I actually called the training staff and the doctors and we discussed getting an MRI if it didn’t get better. After three or four days of throwing it did get better.”

(On facing Boston College) “It doesn’t matter who you’re facing you’re going to have that adrenaline, at least I do. I don’t know some people could probably go out there and not have that, but I’m trying to get those guys out.”