October 3, 2007: Dominant Josh Beckett wins Game 1 of ALDS for Red Sox

In the 2007 postseason, the 96-66 American League Central Division champion Cleveland Indians faced the 94-68 wild-card New York Yankees in one AL Division Series, while the 96-66 AL East champion Boston Red Sox hosted the 94-68 AL West-winning Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the other.1

From their 13th game of the season, on April 18, the Red Sox had held sole possession of first place in the AL East. Near the end of May and again in early July, they had led by as many as 11½ games before finishing just two games ahead of the Yankees.

Though they had a much tighter race all season long, the Angels had been in first place since April 24. They finished with a bit more breathing room, six games ahead of the second-place Seattle Mariners.

Had they perhaps clinched too early, back on September 23, six days before the Red Sox?

The Angels and Red Sox had faced each other 10 times during the season, with Boston winning six of the 10.

Both managers had World Series championships on their résumés, the Angels’ Mike Scioscia in 2002 and Boston’s Terry Francona in 2004.

Francona started Josh Beckett in Game One, played at Fenway Park on the evening of Wednesday, October 3. The 27-year-old right-hander had led the majors with 20 wins, going 20-7 with a 3.27 ERA. He’d struck out 194 batters and walked 40. He went on to finish second in the AL Cy Young Award voting to Cleveland’s CC Sabathia.

Beckett’s last postseason start had been for the Florida Marlins in Game Six of the 2003 World Series. He had shut out the Yankees on five hits to secure the championship for the Marlins – who had taken him second overall in the June 1999 amateur draft – and won his own World Series MVP Award. Both Beckett and third baseman Mike Lowell had come to the Red Sox in an eight-player trade in November 2005.2

Scioscia’s starter, right-hander John Lackey, had led the AL with a 3.01 ERA and had been 19-9 with 179 K’s and 52 walks. Like Beckett, he was a first-time All-Star in 2007. Lackey, lifetime, was 1-4 at Fenway (with a 7.46 ERA) and he’d lost both decisions in 2007.3

The first batter of the game was Angels right fielder Chone Figgins, who came into the postseason without a base hit in his last 22 at-bats.4 He reached on a single off the glove of rookie second baseman Dustin Pedroia, appearing in the first of 51 career postseason games with the Red Sox.5 Shortstop Orlando Cabrera – a member of Boston’s 2004 World Series champions – grounded out, Figgins taking second. The DH, Vladimir Guerrero, grounded out, Figgins taking third. Beckett struck out left fielder Garret Anderson on three pitches.6 No Angel reached third base for the rest of the game.

First up for Boston was Pedroia. He grounded out to third. First baseman Kevin Youkilis homered into the second row of seats atop the wall in left-center. It was his first postseason hit, coming in his second postseason game.7 The next two batters reached as well – DH David Ortiz and left fielder Manny Ramírez, both on singles. But Lackey kept it a 1-0 game by getting Lowell to pop up foul to third base, and J.D. Drew, the right fielder, to ground out.

All three Red Sox with first-inning hits had missed time with late-season injuries. Youkilis had been hit on the wrist and missed seven September games, Ortiz had received a cortisone shot for a sore knee, and Ramírez (strained left oblique) had missed 24 games in the final five weeks.

Beckett set the Angels down in order in the second inning. For the Red Sox, catcher Jason Varitek singled but was erased on a double play, and shortstop Julio Lugo singled but was caught stealing.

Beckett had another one-two-three inning in the top of the third. After one out in the bottom of the inning, Youkilis doubled over third base and into the left-field corner. Ortiz followed with a two-run homer well past the Pesky Pole8 in right, his ninth career postseason homer.

Ramírez drew a walk, then took second on a wild pitch while Lowell was batting. Three pitches later, Lowell – who had led the Red Sox with 120 RBIs – looped a single into center field and the Red Sox had a 4-0 lead. Drew hit into a 4-6-3 double play. The Los Angeles Times’s Bill Plaschke dubbed the Angels pitcher “John Lacking.”9

There was no more scoring by either side. Beckett set the Angels down in order once more in the fourth. Lackey did the same to the Red Sox.

In the Angels’ fifth inning, as in the fourth, not a ball was hit to the outfield and it was three up, three down. Ortiz worked a two-out walk for the Red Sox, but was the only one to reach base.

Beckett faced catcher Mike Napoli and center fielder Reggie Willits in the sixth inning, threw six pitches, and struck both out swinging.10 He needed only two more pitches to get Figgins to line out to center. Drew hit a one-out infield single off Lackey’s glove in the bottom of the inning, but first baseman Casey Kotchman turned Varitek’s grounder into a 3-6-1 double play.

Cabrera’s groundout to open the seventh made it 19 consecutive batters retired by Beckett since Figgins’ leadoff hit in the first. Guerrero broke the streak with a one-out single to left. Beckett didn’t let this second hit throw him off his stride; he got Anderson to pop up to Lowell at third and third baseman Maicer Izturis to hit into a force play at second.

Ervin Santana relieved Lackey in the bottom of the seventh. He got center fielder Coco Crisp to pop up foul to third and struck out Lugo and Pedroia. 

Kotchman grounded to Beckett’s first pitch of the eighth to Youkilis, who threw to Beckett covering the bag for the out. Second baseman Howie Kendrick singled to left. Pinch-hitter Erick Aybar, batting for Napoli, hit into a force play at second base. Kendrys Morales then pinch-hit for Willits. He struck out.

Santana retired the three Red Sox batters he faced in the bottom of the eighth. Two outfield flies and then the fourth foul popup of the game to third base – the third hit by a Boston batter – sent the game to the ninth.

Beckett had thrown 101 pitches. He had allowed just three hits, walked no one, and struck out eight. Seven more pitches and the game was over. Figgins lined to left. First-pitch swinging, Cabrera grounded out, third to first. Guerrero singled to center, but Anderson swung at the first pitch and flied out to center. In the end, it was a four-hit shutout for Beckett and not one of the hits was for extra bases.  

Combined with his Game Six win in the 2003 World Series, Beckett had thrown back-to-back postseason shutouts, allowing nine hits over the course of 18 innings.

According to Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe, it was Boston’s “most dominating performance in a series opener since El Tiante shut out the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0, in Game 1 of the 1975 World Series.”11  

Beckett had been helped by the defense, too. Bob Ryan of the Globe noted two plays in particular – Lowell robbing Napoli of a hit in the third “with a diving stop to his left” and Crisp with “his 32nd? 57th? 79th? four-star play of the year, taking a hit away from Figgins with a sliding grab of a sinking liner in the sixth.”12

But it really came down to Beckett.

Scioscia stated the obvious: “Beckett was about as good as we’ve seen him. I don’t think you’re going to be able to pitch a much better game than that.”13 Of the 108 pitches Beckett had thrown, 83 were for strikes.

One postmortem from Los Angeles said, “The Angels offense looks stale, stagnant … while they rested many regulars over the final week of the season, their bats went into hibernation. They hit .206 and scored 10 runs in their final five games, going two for 22 with runners in scoring position.”14

Game Two was on Friday night at Fenway Park, Daisuke Matsuzaka for the Red Sox against Kelvim Escobar for the Angels. Boston’s bullpen was fully rested and ready.15

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Harrison Golden and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and video of the game at YouTube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS200710030.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2007/B10030BOS2007.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVSjS64KTvM

Notes

1 The Indians had an identical record to that of the Red Sox, but Boston had won five of the seven games between the two teams. Cleveland took three of four games from the Yankees in the Division Series and played the Red Sox in the ALCS.

2 The most notable players who went to the Marlins were Hanley Ramírez and Anibal Sanchez. Bob Ryan, “Stocked Exchange,” Boston Globe, October 3, 2007: D6.

3 Lackey was 1-6 with a 6.27 earned-run average in 11 career starts against the Red Sox. (Lackey later spent four full seasons and part of another with the Red Sox.)

4 Figgins, normally a third baseman, played right field because Vladimir Guerrero’s sore elbow did not permit him to make the throws that he could be called upon to make.

5 As of 2025, Pedroia ranked third in Red Sox history in postseason games, trailing only David Ortiz and Jason Varitek.

6 Anderson had come on strong in the second half of the season, with 65 RBIs in 68 games after the All-Star break, including 10 RBIs in the August 21 game against the Yankees. He was, though, playing with a virus-infected right eye that Bill Plaschke wrote “was nearly swollen shut.” Bill Plaschke, “Lackey Should Be Careful What He Asks For … He Just Got It,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2007: D1.

7 Youkilis came into the playoff with an errorless streak playing first base that had reached 190 consecutive games, already a league record. His streak ran to 238 games, until June 7, 2008.

8 The Pesky Pole was the name given to the right-field foul pole in honor of Red Sox infielder Johnny Pesky, who actually didn’t hit many home runs near the pole.

9 Bill Plaschke, “Lackey Should Be Careful What He Asks For … He Just Got It.” What had he asked for? To pitch against Josh Beckett.

10 Willits played center field in the ALDS because Gary Matthews Jr., whose 72 RBIs ranked fourth on the Angels, was out with painful patellar tendinitis in his left knee. Mike DiGiovanni, “Injured Matthews Left Off Roster,” Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2007: D10. Left off the Red Sox roster, with a bad back, was starting pitcher Tim Wakefield, whose 17 regular-season wins ranked second on the ballclub. See Gordon Edes, “Back Issues Keep Wakefield Off Roster,” Boston Globe, October 3,2007: D8.

11 Gordon Edes, “Complete Control,” Boston Globe, October 4, 2007: E1.

12 Bob Ryan, “Ace’s Stuff Fit for the Kings,” Boston Globe, October 4, 2007: E1.

13 Jack Curry, “Beckett Makes an Opening Statement,” New York Times, October 4, 2007: D1.

14 Mike DiGiovanna, “Ace in the Face,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2007: D1.

15 The Red Sox went on to sweep the Angels in three games. They beat the Indians in a seven-game AL Championship Series, then swept the Colorado Rockies in the World Series.