Pro Baseball: Josh Beckett, Boston Red Sox

Josh Beckett pitched five innings, striking out two and allowing six earned runs Thursday in the Boston Red Sox's 7-1 loss at the Baltimore Orioles. Beckett graduated from Spring High School.

Beckett is a 1999 graduate of Spring High School where he was a two-time high school all-American in his junior (1998) and senior (1999) seasons. The Florida Marlins made him the second overall pick in the 1999 Major League Baseball draft and two years later after 39 minor league games. Beckett posted a 14-1 minor league record during 2001 with a 1.54 ERA and 203 strikeouts in 140 innings. He was named Baseball America's minor league player of the year the Florida Marlins' minor league player of the year and Baseball America first-team minor league all-star starting pitcher. On Sept. 4 2001 he made his Major League debut and made four starts for the Marlins going 2-2 with a 1.50 ERA. After going 6-7 with a 4.10 ERA in 23 games for Florida in 2002 Beckett went 9-8 with a 3.04 ERA and 152 strikeouts in 142 innings during the 2003 season. That year he helped the Marlins win their second World Series and Beckett was named MVP of the Fall Classic after his complete game five-hit shutout of the New York Yankees in the series-clinching Game 6. Beckett went 9-8 for Florida in 2004 and 15-8 in 2005 before he was traded to the Boston Red Sox prior to the 2006 campaign. After a 16-11 record and 5.01 ERA in 2006 his first in Boston Beckett went 20-7 with a 3.27 ERA in 30 starts for Boston in 2007. He was an American League all-star and finished second in the AL Cy Young Award voting before being named MVP of the American League Championship Series as he helped the Red Sox to the World Series title. He won double-digit games in 2008 and 2009 during which he was an AL all-star before going 6-6 in an injury-plagued 2010 season. Beckett was born May 15 1980 in Spring.