Red Sox buoyed by 2-0 lead entering Denver

The Red Sox checked out Coors Field,
a ballpark as unique as their own.

DENVER (AP) — Manny Ramirez, in a blue sweat shirt and white do-rag, was laughing and giving teammates a thumbs-up. David Ortiz stood at first base in gray sweats, a red bandanna around his head, the sun glistening off an earring on his left lobe.

Out in left field, Julian Tavarez was flat on the grass, getting his legs stretched out in an outfield that’s baseball’s equivalent of a prairie. Players looked up at the Rockpile in center, filled with spruce, pine and oak trees, some of the foliage turned yellow and red by cool autumn nights.

Fenway Park this isn’t.

The Boston Red Sox are on a high, and it’s not just because of their 2-0 World Series lead. After filtering out of Fenway in the dead of night, they arrived at their hotel at 5 a.m. Friday and eight hours later were at Coors Field, checking out the dry, thin air of a ballpark as unique as the one off Kenmore Square.

As preparation, the Red Sox told their players to drink, drink, drink — water, that is. The message was everywhere.

“On the plane, all over the locker room, trainer’s room: Just drink that water, stay hydrated,” said rookie Jacoby Ellsbury, who will roam center fielder between Ramirez in left and J.D. Drew in right.

With no designated hitter in the National League city, the Red Sox were in a quandary. Ortiz, slowed by a bad knee, will move to first base while regular first baseman Kevin Youkilis is benched and Mike Lowell remains at third. Ortiz played seven times at first this year, all in interleague play. He’s not a Hoover.

“Anything around me, it’s going to be [caught]. After that, I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve played first base before and it wasn’t that bad. It’s just not Gold Glove-caliber.”

Denver was founded in 1858 by gold prospectors, but these teams are chasing 200 or so troy ounces of silver — the World Series trophy. And while Boston hoped to paint the town red, people downtown wore Rockies purple as they readied for Denver’s first-ever World Series game.

Daisuke Matsuzaka, Boston’s $103 million pitcher, starts against Josh Fogg, who was born in Lynn, Mass., of all places, and is the son of a Red Sox fan.

Players weren’t the only ones soaking it all up. In a silver-colored contraption under the stands between home plate and first base, next to a huge cooler of Coors Light, 142 dozen baseballs were stored behind a padlock in the moist air of the ballpark’s humidor, introduced in 2002. Since then, Coors has been stripped of its reputation as baseball’s premier launching pad, with home runs and scoring dropping as steeply as a Rocky Mountain ski trail.

“Balls aren’t as hard,” Rockies reliever LaTroy Hawkins said. “Not like bricks. They’re not hitting rock. They’re hitting the same ball as in those other places.”

Instead of thinking about Rico Petrocelli or even Doug Mirabelli this weekend, Red Sox fans might be more concerned with Bernoulli — specifically whether Dice-K’s curveball will flatten out in the thin air under Bern oulli’s Principle, which explains why airplanes fly.

“The amount of pressure difference created by the spin depends directly on the density of the air itself,” Bennett Goldberg, chairman of the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences physics department, was quoted as saying on the school’s Web site.

Matt Herges, Hawkins’ bullpen mate, said balls down the lines won’t curve foul at t he mile-high ballpark, as they do at sea level. But he also thinks the path to success is to let the issue vanish into thin air.

“I think it’s kind of a head game,” he said. “They’re so professional, they’re going to adjust. I just hope they don’t adjust right away.”

GAME 2 BOXSCORE
RED SOX 2, ROCKIES 1

COLORADOBOSTON

abrhbiabrhbi

Tveras cf3100Pedroia 2b4010

KMtsui 2b4000Yukilis 1b3000

Hlliday lf4040DOrtiz dh3100

Helton 1b3001MRmrz lf4010

Atkins 3b4000Lowell 3b3111

Hawpe rf4010JDrew rf2020

Tlowzki ss2000Varitek c3001

Trralba c2000Ellsbry cf3010

Spbrgh dh3000JLugo ss3000

Totals29151Totals28262

Colorado100000000—1

Boston00011000x—2

E—Lowell (1). DP—Boston 1. LOB—Colorado 5, Boston 12. 2B—Lowell (2). SB—Ellsbury (1). S—Torrealba, JLugo. SF—Varitek.

IPHRERBBSO

Colorado

UJimenez L,0-14 2-332252

Affeldt000010

Herges110010

Fuentes210001

Corpas1-310000

Boston

Schilling W,1-05 1-341124

Okajima2 1-300004

Papelbon S,11 1-310002

Affeldt pitched to 1 batter in the 5th. HBP—by UJimenez (JDrew), by Schilling (Taveras). Umpires—Home, Laz Diaz; First, Ted Barrett; Second, Chuck Meriwether; Third, Mike Everitt; Left, Mike Reilly; Right, Ed Montague. T—3:39. A—36,730.