By the middle third of the game last night, it was clear that the Red Sox were going to win, and, in the end they did:
DENVER (AP) — Mile high or sea level, these Boston Red Sox can’t be stopped.
The Red Sox made Coors Field their own pinball palace, spraying balls to every part of the park and moving within one win of another World Series sweep.
On a night when rookies ruled, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia sparked the Red Sox from the top of the order, Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched shutout ball into the sixth inning and Boston beat Colorado 10-5 on Saturday for a 3-0 Series lead.
And as much as it pains me to admit it, I think SI’s Tom Donovan is right, the Red Sox are simply a better baseball team:
Blame this one on the Red Sox. They’re too good. They are just a far better club than Colorado, with the kind of relentless quality at-bats that has worn out Rockies pitching. The postseason has brought out the best in Boston. It owns a six-game winning streak in which it has outscored opponents, 55-12, and has trailed for only three of its past 53 innings. This shouldn’t happen in Fort Myers, let alone October.
Opposing starters are nothing but sandbags against the flood: 2-9 in the postseason against Boston with a 7.78 ERA. Nine of them could not hold up for more than five innings, with Fogg’s 2 2/3-inning outing lengthened only by the curious patience of his manager in a must-win game. Fogg faced 19 batters, 13 of them with runners in scoring position, including, incredibly, nine consecutive batters before Hurdle finally hooked him. The score was 6-0 at that point. Fogg became the second pitcher in World Series history to serve up 10 hits in fewer than three innings (Andy Ashby, 1998 Padres, was the other). How does that happen in a must-win game?
The Rockies might win tonight and force a Game 5, heck they might even force the series back to Boston (unlikely), but the end to this drama is inevitable. Time to chill the champagne Boston.
