By Ray Donoghue
Good times have rarely felt so good for the Boston Red Sox, who won their second World Series title in four years with a 4-3 win over the Colorado Rockies on Sunday night.
After waiting 86 years for their sixth title in 2004, the seventh was secured behind a dominant pitching performance by John Lester, who held the Rockies scoreless for 5 2/3 innings.
The win unsurprisingly sparked raucous scenes hundreds of miles back east in Boston, where thousands of fans descended on Fenway Park to celebrate. In scenes that were thankfully more orderly than those that followed the 2004 win, 37 fans were arrested and a number of cars overturned as the celebrations briefly turned violent.
A victory in his first ever postseason start was the perfect end to a remarkable season for Lester, who this time last year was undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma. The 23-year-old lefthander from Washington state had only been added to the World Series pitching staff after the withdrawal of veteran knuckleballer Tim Wakefield and he delivered the same level of starting pitching that saw Boston take the first three games of the series.
On another cold night in Denver, the Rockies again struggled against a Boston lineup that in the end outscored them 29-10 in the series. With their batters struggling at the plate, it was essential for Colorado to keep the Red Sox hitters in check, but they fell behind early as Jacoby Ellsbury continued his stunning late season form with a leadoff double, coming home on a David Ortiz single to right.
Ellsbury, the first Native American of Navajo descent to play in the Major Leagues, supplanted Coco Crisp in the Boston centrefield against Cleveland in the ALCS and proved a driving force in the team since. Another strong outing followed a four hit night last night.
To his credit, Rockies' starter Aaron Cook then held the American League team in check until the fifth inning, when eventual World Series MVP Mike Lowell came around to score on a single from Jason Varitek. Lowell had led off the third inning with a double and he added a home run to his tally in the seventh to make it 3-0 Boston. That hit was the last action for Cook, who in his first start since 10 August, had delivered a strong performance (six innings, six hits, three runs) that allowed Colorado to remain in contention until the end.
Brad Hawpe drew the Rockies within two runs with a solo shot to right in the bottom of the seventh. However the margin was restored in the Boston half of the eighth when pinch hitter Bobby Kielty got his first homerun of the series.
But when Garret Atkins hammered a Hideki Okajima pitch into the stands at Coors Field in the eighth inning, it seemed the Rockies had a chance of becoming only the fourth team to force a game five after going down 3-0 in the World Series. The 50,041 fans inside the stadium sensed it too and it was a wall of noise that greeted Boston closer Jonathan Paplebon when he came out to save the game.
However the hard throwing right hander had yet to give up a run in this World Series and his ERA of zero was maintained when Seth Smith struck out to end the game. Paplebon had overpowered all five batters he faced, the final out sparking wild celebrations at the mound.
After a month that saw them win 21 of 22 games to storm in to the World Series, leaving the San Diego Padres and the Philadelphia Phillies in their wake, the Colorado Rockies found themselves second to one as the Red Sox stormed the field in triumph.
