Dustin Pedroia Leads Boston Red Sox to the 2007 World Series

By Ken Savage | Oct 22, 2007

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The Boston Red Sox are heading to the World Series for the second time in four seasons thanks to Dustin Pedroia.

Rookie second baseman Dustin Pedroia hit a two-run home run in the seventh inning and the Red Sox never looked back, breezing to an 11-2 victory over the visiting Cleveland Indians in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday night. Reminds me how the Red Sox got the the 2004 World Series.

Boston will host Game 1 of the World Series against the Colorado Rockies, who completed a four-game sweep of Arizona in the National League Championship Series on Oct. 15. Amazing! Anyone know any good Red Sox jokes?

Colorado took two of three games at Fenway Park in inter-league play in June, scoring 20 runs to Boston’s five.

Against Cleveland, Boston was down 3-1 in games but reeled off three consecutive wins, outscoring the Indians 30-5.

“The season is almost over we were down 3-1, you get that sense of urgency,” Pedroia said after hitting his first post-season homer. “Nobody wanted to go home, nobody wanted to say goodbye to each other. Once we got that win in Cleveland, we started to believe.”

Rookie Dustin Pedroia was the hero of the hour for the Sox, hitting one home run and five RBIs as his team came back from that early ALCS deficit. The time the Sox came back from a 3-1 deficit was against the New York Yankees in 2004. They won the World Series that year.

Boston scored three runs in the first three innings of game seven to take a 3-0 lead through RBIs by Mike Lowell, Julio Lugo and Ramirez before Ryan Garko’s and Grady Sizemore narrowed the deficit to 3-2 by the fifth inning.

After a baserunning mistake by the Indians in the seventh inning meant that Kenny Lofton couldn’t score to tie the game, Pedroia made Cleveland pay for their error with a two-run shot.

JD Drew’s RBI and a three-run double from Pedroia added four more at the bottom of the eighth, and Kevin Youkilis turned things into a rout by hammering a two-run homer in the same inning.

Daitsuke Matsuaka came out as the winning pitcher for the Red Sox, while Jake Westbrook - despite pitching tidily for the Indians - ended up as the loser.

Josh Beckett, who was brilliant in his two outings against the Tribe, won the ALCS Most Valuable Player award.

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