2007 World Series Game 2:

Game 2 was indeed the polar opposite, with dominant pitching was the storyline. Schilling, Okajima and Papelbon combined to keep the Rockies’ hitters in a deep freeze while Ubaldo Jiminez, Matt Herges and Brian Fuentes held Boston to only a pair of runs. Two runs were all the Red Sox needed on this cool, clear autumn night.

Schilling hit Taveras with a pitch to start things. With one out, Matt Holliday hit an infield grounder that took a crazy hop. Taveres made it to third and Holliday took second when Lowell`s throw to get Taveres came in with the first run of the ballgame.

Meanwhile, Jiminez was dominant in his first trip through the order. By the second time around though the Sox hitters started to get a read on the young righty as Pedroia and Youkilis walked before Big Papi just missed a home run before striking out.

After Schilling’s rocky start, he settled in and became The Hoss, retiring nine of the next ten. By the bottom of the fourth, the bloom on Jiminez’ fastball started to fade. With one out Lowell walked. Drew line a base hit to right and Lowell hustled over to third getting in on a headfirst slide, with Drew takinh second on the throw. Varitek hit a sacrifice fly to Taveras in center and Lowell came in with the tying run. Ellsbury then walked and stole second, allowing Americans an opportunity for a free taco at Taco Bell!

With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, the Sox scraped another run. By this time Jiminez appeared to be holding on for dear life. He walked Ortiz and Manny then whacked a base hit to left. Lowell stepped in a drove a liner that hit into the leftfield corner. Ortiz hoofed it around second and came in with the go-ahead run. Jiminez was lifted at that point for Affedlt, who walked Drew. Herges came on and shut the door tight.

Schilling started to tire in the sixth. With one out, Holliday singled, Helton walked and the atmosphere became quite tense. Francona came to take the ball from Schilling and he received a huge ovation as he left, tipping his cap several times on the way back to the dugout. Hideki Okajima relieved him and was brilliant. He was able to retire Atkins on a grounder to first then struck out Hawpe swinging to kill the threat.

The Sox put runners on the corners with two outs in the bottom of the inning but Herges was able to get Ortiz to fly out to center and that ended the threat. Okajima retired the side in order in the seventh and struck out Taveras and Matsui to open the eighth before giving way to Papelbon. Holliday reached on an infield single, but was picked off first taking too big of a lead. Since Papelbon rarely throws over to first, Holliday must’ve thought it safe to take an extra step toward second. The bench saw this, signaled accordingly and Holliday was a dead duck; it wasn’t even close.

In the ninth, Papelbon struck out Helton swinging, retired Atkins on a fly ball to center then disposed of Hawpe on a swinging strikeout to end the ballgame, and the Sox took a 2-0 lead in the Series. It’s nice, but it’s only two games. The Sox now move onto the Rockies’ turf where their fans will be waiting. Daisuke gets the ball for Game 3 and it’s not going to be an easy task to come out of Denver on a high note.

But any World Series win is something to savor around here where the Red Sox have only won 15 of these games in five Series in the past 40 years. Game 2 was all about pitching, pitching and more pitching.

Curt Schilling 5.1IP 4H 1ER 2BB 4K 82PC
Hideki Okajima 2.1IP 0H 0ER 0BB 4K 28PC
Jonathan Papelbon 1.1IP 1H 0ER 0BB 2K 16PC

No one could ask any more than that.

Now it’s onto Denver and we’ll see…