Haren, Beckett Delivered

 It was supposed to be this way. Aces Dan Haren and Josh Beckett squared off at Fenway Park Monday night in what was a matchup between two of the game's hottest pitchers. 

And true to form, neither man disappointed. 

Haren pitched 7-shutout innings, limiting the Sox to just 2 hits and striking out 5 in a 2-1 Diamondbacks victory. His counterpart, Beckett, was his usual dominant self, pitching 8 strong innings during which he allowed just 2 runs on 5 hits while striking out 8. According to Yahoo, Beckett allowed two runs or fewer for the 5th time in his last 6 starts, which obviously is a good sign for him and Red Sox fans. 

Both Haren and Beckett came into Monday's game scorching hot in the month of June, posting 2-0 records with miniscule ERAs of 1.99 and 2.36, respectively. 

But on Monday, Haren did things a little differently. He relied heavily on his fastball in lieu of his devastating breaking pitches, throwing 93-95 MPH heaters with the occasional slider and splitter mixed in. 

Beckett looked very sharp through his first 6 innings. He relied primarily on his mid-90s fastball, per usual, and mixed in his sharp 12-6 curve and change-up for good measure. Excluding a Justin Upton opposite field double in the 3rd inning, not one D-Backs hitter managed to make solid contact off Beckett until Chris Young stepped into the box in the top of the 7th and sent a rocket off the Green Monster to score Connor Jackson's with the game's first run. 

The very next batter, catcher Chris Snyder, hit a chopper to 1B Brandon Moss, who entered the game before the top of the 5th when Kevin Youkilis exited after getting hit in the face by a warmup throw. Moss, making his major league debut at 1st, bobbled the grounder as he appeared to be throwing toward home-plate to cut down Mark Reynolds, who scored the D-backs' second run on the miscue. 

The Sox best chance to inflict damage came in the bottom of the 8th, when they loaded the bases with one out for the game's hottest hitter, J.D. Drew. 

Drew ripped a liner right at CF Chris Young, scoring Julio Lugo on the sac-fly to make it 2-1. Manny stepped up next and battled hard-throwing reliever Tony Pena, fouling off 5-6 pitches, until he ripped a scorching line-drive that left 3B Mark Reynolds with two simple choices: catch the ball or die. 

Reynolds didn't catch the ball so much as he shielded his face and found the piece of rawhide resting comfortably in his leather mitt after regaining consciousness and picking himself up off the dirt. 

I've attended some 60 Red Sox games in my time and have seen my fair share of hard hits -- including a 440-foot laser beam off the bat of Jason Varitek -- courtesy of a hanging slider from Yankees starter Randy Johnson --that cleared the back of the Green Monster by a mere 8-10 feet before sailing into the back end of the Lansdowne Street parking lot -- but never in my life have I seen a ball hit that hard.