Ellsbury Bruises Left Knee

Jacoby Ellsbury bruised the inside of his left knee when he ran into Angels' catcher Jeff Mathis after crossing the plate in the seventh inning last night. Darnell McDonald was sent out to play center field when the Red Sox took the field for the eighth inning. Ellsbury may not play tonight.

Josh Beckett threw 25 pitches in a bullpen session on Monday and will start (on six days rest) on Wednesday night. Terry Francona has tweaked the rotation slightly, with Jon Lester moving ahead of Beckett and pitching tonight. John Lackey (four days rest) will pitch Thursday afternoon and Daisuke Matsuzaka (who left last Friday's game with right elbow stiffness) gets the ball (on seven days rest) against the Twins on Friday. One benefit of the revised rotation is that there is a day between Beckett and Matsuzaka, so Jason Varitek can more easily continue to catch them.

Peter Abraham, on Dustin Pedroia's 13-pitch battle against Jered Weaver, a battle won by the Fuck Yeah! Kid with a two-RBI single up the middle:

The 13-pitch sequence broke down to four fastballs, three sliders, three cutters and three changeups. ... Weaver threw four different pitches and at six different speeds. ... Of the 118 pitches Weaver threw, Pedroia saw 23 of them over three at-bats.

That's 19.5% of Weaver's pitches for the entire night! (Also: Varitek saw 15 pitches in his two plate appearances against Weaver.) Among the neat facts gathered by Gary Marbry at WEEI's Nuggetpalooza:

– Pedroia's 13-pitch at-bat matched the longest of his career. His other at-bat of that length came in his third game in the majors, on August 27, 2006, when Pedroia worked a 13-pitch walk against Cha-Seung Baek of the Mariners.

– Pedroia now has the only recorded hit on an at-bat of 13-plus pitches by a Red Sox at Fenway Park (with records of such things dating to the 1970s in baseball-reference.com).

– No hitter had ever gone to as many as 13 pitches in an at-bat against Weaver in his career.

– In 27 previous regular season and postseason at-bats between Pedroia and Weaver ... only one plate appearance between the two had lasted more than six pitches.

– Weaver had not been forced to throw as many as 38 pitches in an inning since the first inning of a game against the Orioles on August 14, 2009.