Finally!

When the playoffs started this year I was pulling for a Cleveland-Colorado World Series. Colorado had never been, Cleveland has not won one for decades. Nothing against Cub fans...but I ain't one. The first round went perfectly for me. Once it was Arizona-Colorado in the National League and Cleveland-Boston in the American League I was pumped. I like all 4 teams and will not be disappointed regardless of who wins. And when Cleveland was up 3-1 it looked like my "dream series" was a possibility. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a much bigger Dodger fan than I am of any of these teams...but I like to see different teams win so have no issue with rooting for multiple teams.)

As we all know, it is Boston that once more came back from the brink of the dead to reach the World Series. And in game 1 they made it look like an exhibition against a crop of good but not great Junior College players.

But game 2...finally, we got what the World Series should be.

Colorado started fast. Taveras got hit by Schilling. Schill is one of the great all-time post-season pitchers. The announcers kept talking about "This is not the Schillling of a couple years ago". On one level, they are correct. This is not the dominating pitcher of the bloody sock who took down the hated Yankees. His regular season was quite ordinary...actually, he looked like an average pitcher at best.

But great players have a way of taking their games to the next level. Schill looked pretty tough to beat against Cleveland when Boston had to have a win. And Colorado had shown no offense in game 1. This was a game Colorado had to have since it is unlikely they will win 3 at home. Even if they take 2 of 3...and that looks dubious...if they lose the first 2, win 2 of 3, they would be looking at having to take 2 of 2 from Boston in Boston with Beckett throwing probably in game 7. That is not a good scenario for Colorado fans.

After Taveras was hit some GREAT base running got him to third on a rocket shot. However, on that play Colorado missed a chance to put the screws to Boston. When the ball was rolling across the infield and Schilling was chasing it, Taveras is so fast that had he broken for home he would most likely have scored and they would have had a run in, 1 out, and Helton at the plate. However, the coach held him and they were still scoreless.

With runners on second and third Helton grounded out to score Taveras. So they still tallied a run and Schilling was looking shaky. But the third out quickly followed.

Jiménez came out throwing lightning bolts and the powerful Red Sox went down in order. This in itself was perhaps newsworthy. Their offense had roughed up Colorado for 11 runs after 2 outs in game one alone...to get an easy inning against the top of their line-up is an accomplishment. And it was repeated in the second and third inning as that one run was holding up.

And it was having to. The Rockies kept getting their lead off man on base and doing nothing with it. This was the Schilling that we see in the post season. He may not be the overpowering strike-out artist of 2004 but he is still a good, good pitcher who locates his pitches, moves the ball around, and knows how to get hitters out.

Finally in the 4th the Red Sox scored but it could have been a lot worse. Somehow Jiménez struck out one of the great clutch hitters of our generation, Big Papi, in a clutch situation. But he got wild and with 2 outs was walking people. He got himself in jam after jam and ended up giving up another run in the 5th after getting the first two batters out. That would be the end of his night.

But it was a good night. He did all that was asked of him, keeping the Rockies in the game. Holding the Red Sox to two runs was quite a feat, particularly in light of their record setting 4 game run of double digit tallies. And the innings he worked were tense. You knew the Sox were looking for that huge knock-out blow and they had their chances. Jiménez gave them plenty of base runners and one long ball would have broken the game wide open and led to a blow out. But he never gave up that hit. He battled and battled.

It was a classic battle of a young, talented pitcher against a veteran team of great hitters. This time, good pitching beat good hitting...for the most part. His walks did him in for the 2 runs.

And then the bullpens took over. The Rockies just needed one to tie, 2 to win...but Okajima, the first Japanese pitcher in World Series history, would not let them. He was lights out. And the Rockies bullpen was just as solid. 0 after 0 popped up on the scoreboard, a series that favored Boston. They had Papelbon in the bullpen. Corpas is good...but seriously, who would you rather face with the game on the line, Corpas or Papelbon?

Ironically, Papelbon started to look like the weak link. Francona yanked Okajima with 2 outs and nobody on in the 8th. Papelbon came in to face NL MVP candidate Matt Holliday completed his 4 for 4 night with a laser up the middle that almost took out Papelbon and 2nd baseman Justin Pedroia on one play. But then something really strange happened.

Holliday took a HUGE lead off first. It stunned me. He looked like Vince Coleman in his glory years. Well, except for the way he got picked off by so far he barely even reached the bag on his belated dive back to the bag. And Papelbon had his first successful post-season pick-off ever. Of course, it was also his first successful CAREER pick-off. He had never...ever...in his entire Major League career picked anyone off until he got Holliday.

The 9th was anti-climatic. The Rockies best and most successful hitters could only watch from the dugout as Papelbon overpowered their last hopes and the game ended with that 2 - 1 score.

It was a night with good pitching, tight defense, and runs were scratched out. There were no 3 run bombs, just hard work and tough offense. This was a pretty entertaining World Series game.