Beckett Strikes Again, 4-0 in This Postseason; Red Sox Trounce Rox, 13-1

Oct 25, 07:06 AM

Current Headlines: By John Lowe, Detroit Free Press

Oct. 25--BOSTON -- Josh Beckett didn't need all those runs Wednesday night. The Boston right-hander could have won a pitchers' duel with Bob Gibson.

The Red Sox batters and Rockies pitchers combined to hand Beckett the most runs any team has ever accumulated in Game 1 of the World Series. Beckett turned the support into the largest margin of victory any team has ever had in a World Series opener.

Boston beat Colorado, 13-1, at Fenway Park. It would be a great disservice to Beckett to say that the Rockies suffered from their eight-day layoff. Their real problems were Beckett's fastball and Beckett's curve ball.

Beckett continued perhaps the most overwhelming postseason winning streak by a pitcher since Gibson in the 1960s. Beckett has pitched dominantly as he has won his past five postseason starts, four this season. Gibson won seven straight postseason games for the Cardinals in a trio of World Series.

Beckett allowed one run in seven innings Wednesday. He walked one and struck out nine, giving him this stunning ratio for this postseason: two walks, 35 strikeouts.

Colorado was swamped early in its first World Series game. Beckett struck out all three hitters in the first, and Dustin Pedroia led off the bottom of the first with a homer to start a three-run inning off left-hander Jeff Francis.

As has often become the case lately, Boston refused to swing at bad pitches and continually made the pitcher work. Francis needed more than 100 pitches to get through four innings, in which he yielded six runs.

In the fifth inning, they got seven more against the bullpen, all with two outs. For a few moments in that inning, it looked like the final score could be the same as the hot streak the Rockies brought into Wednesday: 21-1.

In the low point of the game (and, let us hope, this whole World Series), right-hander Ryan Speier arrived with the bases loaded and walked all three batters he faced. Those three runs he forced in made it 13-1.

"One of the strengths of our club is that throughout the season our confidence hasn't been shaken by the result of one game," said Colorado manager Clint Hurdle. "I feel real confident we'll get back out there and get back after it (in Game 2 tonight)."

Pedroia began the Red Sox first by raising a question: How often do you see a player get an extra-base hit in three straight innings in the postseason? In the final two innings the Red Sox batted in the American League Championship Series, Pedroia hit a homer and a double, good for five RBIs.

Then he drove Francis second pitch of this night just over the 37-foot wall in left. The last time in a World Series that someone had homered to begin a first inning came when Boston's Johnny Damon did so in 2004. That came in the Red Sox's most recent World Series game before Wednesday.

Rain began to fall shortly before the game and continued with varying intensity through four innings. But as the Sox built their lead in those four innings against the Rockies' No. 1 pitcher, the Boston fans -- in their array of colorful jackets and slickers -- clearly didn't mind the moisture.

Contact JOHN LOWE at 313-223-4053 or jlowe@freepress.com. Check out his Tigers blog at www.freep.com/sports.

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