The Red Sox took command of this World Series with a bit more haste. The Colorado Rockies hung right in there for one pitch from first-game starter Jeff Francis, and then Dustin Pedroia hit the second pitch off the top of the Green Monster, and the Rockies were on the run.
Pedroia's leadoff homer came on Wednesday night in Boston, starting a 13-1 victory. The final was 2-1 for the Red Sox on Thursday, and that's how the teams arrived at Coors Field on Saturday.
"They defended their home field," Rockies star Matt Holliday said. "Now, we'll have to defend ours."
Holliday offered one dramatic, ear-splitting moment when that seemed a possibility, but Boston came hard early and again late for a 10-5 victory in a 4-hour, 19-minute marathon that was the longest nine-inning game in World Series history.
So, the Red Sox have won six in a row in this postseason, and they need only one more to win a second World Series in four years. That is a notable achievement when you consider it was an 86-year gap between the previous titles -- from 1918 to 2004.
Josh Fogg was the veteran pitcher sent out in Game 3 to open the Rockies' defense of Coors Field, where they were a National League-best 51-30 in the regular season and 3-0 in the NL playoffs.
He rode a tightrope for two scoreless innings, then those 85-mile-per-hour fastballs and fat breaking pitches turned into glorified batting practice. The Red Sox scored six runs on seven hits in the third.
Manager Clint Hurdle was way too patient with Fogg, allowing him to continue even after the first five Red Sox reached base in the inning.
Fogg could have escaped with a 3-0 deficit when Daisuke Matsuzaka, the opposing pitcher, batted with two outs and the bases loaded.
Dice-K spent the previous portion of his pro career pitching for the Seibu Lions in Japan's Pacific League. That's a league where the pitchers do not hit. This season, he was 0-for-4 in interleague games.
Fogg flipped him a hittable curveball and Matsuzaka whacked it into left field for a two-run single. Hurdle still stayed with Fogg, until Jacoby Ellsbury followed with an RBI double.
This was Ellsbury's second double of the inning. He wound up the night with three.
And let's throw this in right now: This Ellsbury, a lefthanded-hitting rookie, doesn't fit the Red Sox profile. He runs way too fast. Before you know it, he'll be scoring from first on doubles and the Fenway faithful will suffer a mass attack of chest pains.
Matsuzaka was a key factor Saturday, and yet he remained baffling. It cost $103 million for the Red Sox to get him from Japan and keep him away from the Yankees.
The assortment of pitches -- live fastball, solid breaking ball, excellent changeup -- are there, as advertised, but his unwillingness to throw them over the plate can't be explained.
Even his manager, Terry Francona, recently lamented Matsuzaka's approach by saying: "He can turn 0-2 into a 3-2 count faster than anybody."
Members of the Boston media have taken to describing Matsuzaka as a "power nibbler." A guy like Kenny Rogers nibbles around the edges of the plate for self-preservation. Dice-K nibbles for reasons that don't translate from Japanese to English.
Matsuzaka had a one-hitter through four innings and a shutout through five, but his pitch count was rising and then he walked Todd Helton and Garrett Atkins back-to-back with one out.
Francona came to get his nibbler, and went first to lefthander Javier Lopez, then to righthander Mike Timlin. What followed were two RBI singles, pinch-hitter Ryan Spilborgh's drive to the base of the center field fence and into Ellsbury's glove, and pinch-hitter Jeff Baker's screaming liner that was snared by a leaping Julio Lugo.
The bad luck didn't take the heart out of these Rockies. They made another comeback in the seventh against Mike Timlin. After two opening hits, Francona went for Hideki Okajima, the lefthanded reliever and hero of the Game 2 victory.
Okajima threw over to first base. Then, he threw to the plate and Holliday -- who again heard "MVP" chants in his at-bats -- crushed the ball into the trees in straightaway center for a three-run homer.
The lead was down to 6-5 and Denver's World Series newcomers went into a screaming, delirious frenzy worthy of the Thunderdome 20 years ago in downtown Minneapolis.
But that was it. The Red Sox added three in the eighth against lefty Brian Fuentes, the Rockies' three-time All-Star, and that made the game -- and this World Series -- a foregone conclusion.
