BOSTON (AP) — Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett has been scratched from Monday night’s start because of back spasms.

“He’s been feeling it. This time of year, guys feel it a lot,” Boston manager Terry Francona said before the game against Toronto. “But on the plane last night he tried to get comfortable and didn’t. I think he thought he’d wake up and take a hot shower and go about his business. And when that didn’t happen, he called me. … We said this doesn’t make sense, and he kind of agreed.”

Michael Bowden replaced him against the Blue Jays. Francona did not say when Beckett is expected to pitch again.

“We’re going to see what to do,” Francona said, adding that the rest could turn out to be beneficial for the playoffs. “We’re going to going to try and turn what was a negative today into a positive, whether it’s a rest or pitching in a couple of days. … We’re probably going to just skip his turn but we haven’t made a decision yet.”

A key part of Boston’s run to the 2007 World Series championship, Beckett is 16-6 and has already thrown a career-high 207 1-3 innings this season.

The Red Sox began the night with a magic number of two to beat out Texas for the AL wild card spot.

Also Monday, left-hander Jon Lester threw long toss and didn’t report any problems with the quadriceps muscle that was hit by a line drive against the New York Yankees on Friday night. He said he did not expect to miss Thursday’s start.

“I felt fine,” he said. “No problems and didn’t feel anything in the knee. I took a normal long toss and everything and was right around 55 pitches. So everything was good.”

Third baseman Mike Lowell, who was not in the lineup on Monday night, got an injection in his hip on Monday and was expected to miss the next couple of games.

“We’ll try to treat him as responsibly as we can in this next week, and some of that will just be listening to how he feels,” Francona said.

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