“DIARY OF A WINNER”
JOSH BECKETT

A POWERFUL CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM

October 22, 2007 ... No game scheduled ... This is no easy feat, reaching the Series twice in the span of four seasons. The Sox join the Yankees (three times) and the Cardinals (twice) as the only teams to make multiple appearances since 2000, and the Sox are returning in a year in which seven of the eight postseason participants were sitting at home last October (the Yankees were the only repeaters).

When the World Series starts at Fenway Park, it will be the second one here in four years. The Sox beat the 86-year-old curse in 2004 with the greatest comeback anybody has ever seen, against the Yankees, no less.

Fenway Park erupted last night at the sight of Josh Beckett walking to the bullpen in the middle of the second inning. With the Red Sox breaking open a tight game by scoring eight times in their last two at-bats, Red Sox manager Terry Francona never had to summon him during the game. But Beckett still got last call when it was announced that he had been named Most Valuable Player of the American League Championship Series. Beckett won the series opener, then came up huge in Game 5 with the Sox at the brink of elimination in Cleveland, with a dominating 7-1 victory. For the series, Beckett was 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA, walking just one batter while striking out 18 in 14 innings.

The shoulder injury that has bothered Tim Wakefield for two months, forcing him to be scratched from a start in September and keeping him off the American League Division Series roster, will prevent the knuckleballer from pitching in the World Series. Wakefield, a 17-game winner and the longest-tenured member of the Red Sox, had been slotted for Games 2 and 6, both in Fenway Park, before it was determined he was risking long-term damage by continuing to pitch this season.

Reliever Kyle Snyder took Tim Wakefield's place on the 25-man World Series roster. He was left off both the Division Series and LCS rosters. His inclusion continues a triumphant first full season in the big leagues that came after Snyder had four major arm surgeries. The Sox chose Snyder over Julian Tavarez, further evidence of how far the veteran righthander has fallen off the charts.
 

THEO EPSTEIN &
TERRY FRANCONA

October 23, 2007 ... No game scheduled ... One need only hold up the respective class pictures to observe the differences between the Sox team that in 2004 staged the unprecedented feat of winning four straight games after losing the first three to the Yankees in the ALCS and the team that in 2007 was extended almost as strenuously, required to win the last three against a Cleveland Indians team that cooperated by succumbing, 30-5 (cumulative score).

 

JEFF FRANCIS

Only seven players remain from the '04 team, eight if you include Kevin Youkilis, who played in the Division Series but was left off the LCS and Series rosters, underscore the degree to which general manager Theo Epstein has remade the team.

Terry Francona, who has the highest winning percentage of any Red Sox manager since 1950 (375-273, .579) and is the first manager to take the team to the postseason three times, will be given a contract extension after the season

What Francona said would have been a difficult decision, whether to start Coco Crisp or Jacoby Ellsbury in center field, became academic after the manager reported that Crisp had not recovered from running into the center-field wall while making a terrific game-ending catch in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. Ellsbury, the rookie who started Games 6 and 7 because Crisp was hitting .161 (5 for 31) with nine whiffs in the postseason, will draw the start in Game 1.