King Kaufman's Sports Daily

World Series: Red Sox arms do it again. Rockies head home trailing 2-0. Plus: Fox's great use of sound. And: NFL Week 8.

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Oct. 26, 2007 | The World Series is headed to Coors Field, and unless the quirkiest ballpark in the National League can do a number on the Boston Red Sox, we're in for the fourth straight lopsided Series.

Fenway Park is the quirkiest ballpark in the American League, and while it didn't do a number on the Colorado Rockies so much as Boston's pitching did, the Red Sox are up 2-0 either way. Curt Schilling, Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon combined to hold Colorado's potent offense to a single run for the second straight night Thursday as the Red Sox won Game 2, 2-1.

The oddness of the stadiums -- Fenway with its angles and corners and huge wall, Coors with its cavernous dimensions and thin air -- makes this Series a good candidate to be one of those where the home team wins every game. The Red Sox would like that, and while it wouldn't work out for the Rockies, they'd have to be OK with it through the early part of next week.

The assignment gets very tough for Colorado at Game 5: Josh Beckett pitching in Denver for the Red Sox, then two games in Fenway, where the Rockies looked lost for two nights. Their last hope at a rally in Game 2, slugger Matt Holliday greeting Papelbon with a two-out single in the eighth, was snuffed out when Holliday managed to get himself picked off by about two feet.

If the Rockies are going to make this a series, it would behoove them to win both games over the weekend. By late Saturday night we'll have an idea whether they're overmatched or whether Fenway or an eight-day layoff made them look bad for two games. I have a feeling it's more like the latter. But it might be wishful thinking. The losing teams have combined to win one game in the last three Series, and I'm ready for a little more competitiveness.

The positive note for the Rockies is that they shut down the Red Sox bats, which had exploded for 13 runs in Game 1. Okajima and Papelbon made headlines with their three and two-thirds innings of one-hit relief and six strikeouts, but the Rockies bullpen, shredded in Game 1, threw three and a third innings of shutout ball of their own.

The Sox pushed across both of their runs, singletons in the fourth and fifth innings, because Colorado starter Ubaldo Jimenez, who allowed only three hits in four and two-thirds innings, lost the strike zone. Both runners who scored were among Jimenez's five walks. The bats were mostly quiet.

So the Rockies will send Josh Fogg, known in Colorado baseball circles for winning games against big-name pitchers, in Game 3 against Daisuke Matsuzaka, who didn't have a year worthy of his big name but who's capable of big things.

The Rockies have made occasional headlines with their identity as a team built on Christianity ever since an article on the subject appeared in USA Today last year. One gathers that they'll be doing some pretty heavy praying on the off day.

Who knows. Might help. But, to paraphrase my favorite boxing joke yet again, it wouldn't hurt if they could hit a little too.

Next page: "Sounds of the Game" rocks for once. Plus: NFL Week 8