Still, though their hitters have been important, both teams provide further evidence, as if any were needed, that pitching is the pathway to championships. Both teams, although the Rockies for a far shorter duration, have been perennial also-rans for most of their history, playing in ballparks that were hitters’ paradises and pitchers’ nightmares. Boston’s Fenway Park, with its short perch in left and its vast open space in right, favored fly-ball hitting righties (Tony Conigliaro, Rico Petrocelli) and lefties who could spray the ball to all fields (Freddy Lynn, Wade Boggs, Mike Greenwell, Mo Vaughn). And Coors Field, with its light, dry air, favored any hitter with an uppercut swing, turning middling sluggers (Dante Bichette, Vinny Castilla) into stars and stars (Larry Walker, Todd Helton) into monsters.
The result: teams that were wicked at home and woeful elsewhere, having developed hitting and pitching habits that didn’t play on the road. The parks wreaked psychic havoc on their pitching staffs, not the best path to championship glory. In recent years both ballparks have undergone dramatic changes, as the Red Sox, perhaps inadvertently, and the Rockies, most vertently, transformed their yards into places where good pitching can succeed. The subsequent success has not been an accident.
In Boston the transformation was a happy byproduct of construction changes at Fenway, begun as far back as 1989, designed not to affect play but to add more high-priced seats. Fenway Park became bigger and higher, most importantly behind home plate, and the resulting shift in the wind currents made it less of a home-run park. When Boston general manager Theo Epstein made his famous 2003 Thanksgiving trip to Phoenix to convince Curt Schilling to accept a trade, Schilling, who had been drafted originally by the Red Sox in 1986, recalled Fenway as a treacherous place for fly-ball pitchers like him. But Epstein was armed with all the latest stats, revealing to Schilling the winds of change. The rest, as they say, is history.
Short of a dome, the Rockies (Mountain High) couldn’t do anything about the air. But several seasons back they began using a humidor to moisten the balls like fine cigars. If a pitcher wets the ball, it’s an illegal spitter. But if a team does it, it’s apparently a godsend. The Rockies’ staff ERA has declined in each of the last four years, from 5.54 in 2003 to a respectable 4.32 in 2007, right in the middle of the National League pack. Even more critical, the Rockies’ road and home ERAs were virtually identical this season (as opposed to 2004, when Colorado pitchers had this remarkable disparity: an ERA of 6.27 at home and 4.77 on the road).
In the postseason, pitching rules. The Red Sox and Rockies, with their strange home-field evolutions, are a testament to that. Here are the other key factors in this series:
Wild-Card Success Wild-card teams, like this year’s Rockies, have represented half the teams in the last seven World Series and have come up winners in three out of six played so far. That’s not really such a surprise. The wild-card berth in the playoffs is often the most contested race in baseball, and the winner is usually hot at the right time. No wild-card team has ever been warmer than the Rockies, who have swept both their playoff series and won 21 of the last 22.
American League Superiority The American League has dominated interleague play—76 games over .500 the past two seasons—and has not lost an All-Star Game since 1996, a genuine reflection of the league’s superior talent (as it was in the ’60s and ’70s when the N.L. took 19 out of 20). The Red Sox are 28-8 in interleague contests over the last two years and, of course, swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series.
Young Guns The Rockies are a homegrown team that arrived a year or two ahead of schedule. Their starting lineup has only two players over 30; kinder outfielders Matt Holiday (27) and Brad Hawpe (28) and infielders Garret Atkins (27) and Troy Tulowitzki (22) combined for 114 home runs. The Red Sox, with David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Mike Lowell at the heart of their order are nowhere near as youthful, but they have integrated outstanding young hitters like A.L. Championship Series heroes Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis into the lineup, along with rookie speedster Jacoby Ellsbury. Colorado’s opening-game starter, Jeff Francis, is just 26, and its closer, Manuel Corpas, is just 24. Boston’s Josh Beckett is still only 27, and Red Sox closer and Irish step-dancer Jonathan Papelbon is 26.
DH Conventional wisdom suggests that the absence of the designated hitter in National League parks hurts the American League, since its pitchers find themselves in the unfamiliar position of hitting. But I always thought it was more of a factor in American League parks, where the N.L. teams lacked the big extra big bat, like a Big Papi or Jim Thome or Frank Thomas, that A.L. teams keep around strictly as DHs. Still, the Red Sox face a genuine dilemma in Colorado: obliged to play Ortiz at first, the game’s premier clutch hitter, the Red Sox have the equally bad options of sitting either Mike Lowell (.324-21-120 in 2007) or Kevin Youkilis (.424 with four home runs in the playoffs).
Baseball Byes A nine-day layoff may be just what the doctor ordered for an NFL playoff team, but in October baseball it is unprecedented and generally regarded as less than helpful. The Tigers lost only a single game in the first two rounds of the playoffs last season, then waited a week for the Cardinals to squeak by the Mets. Their bats proceeded to go silent against a suspect St. Louis staff and they were cooked in five. Colorado is hotter than the Tigers were, but their wait has been even longer.
Parity The NFL promises parity. But it’s Major League Baseball that delivers. All four teams that were still playing last week missed the playoffs in 2006, and a Rockies World Series triumph would make it eight different champions in eight seasons.
Home-Field Advantage We all agree it’s stupid to let the All-Star Game dictate the home-field advantage. Nevertheless, it does and the advantage is Boston’s. Thus a seventh game would be played in Fenway. You have to go back to the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates to find a team that won the seventh game of the World Series on the road; since then, eight series have gone the distance and all have been won by the home team.
Prediction If I get this one right, it’s a perfect seven-for-seven postseason for me—and NEWSWEEK’s $1 million bonus kicks in. (Note to self: did I get that promise in writing?) The Rockies have all the karma, but the Red Sox have more of the real thing: Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling, proven big-game pitchers; the big lumber at the heart of the Red Sox lineup; and the home-field advantage. Add in Colorado’s layoff, and everything is coming up Boston. Eighty-six years was a really long time to wait. Three years seems just like yesterday.
