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 The next 19 Angels who faced the postseason star couldn't even get to first.
"You've got to go up there and swing and he was ahead of us all night," Figgins said. "It's what you expect from him. He's tough."
Beckett proved that by being the only 20-game winner this year. On Wednesday night, he went one step further, pitching the best game of his best season and leading the Boston Red Sox to a 4-0 win over Los Angeles in the opener of the AL division series.
The MVP of the 2003 World Series pitched his second consecutive postseason shutout with backing from homers by David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis. Beckett gave up just four singles and no walks and struck out eight in extending his playoff scoreless streak to 18 innings with his first complete-game win of the year.
"It's a really cool thing to be able to go out there and be the only pitcher that pitches for your team that day," he said. "I don't think that they ever thought about taking me out."
After Thursday's off day, the Angels will try to even the best-of-5 series on Friday night when they send Kelvim Escobar to the mound against Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Japanese star who will be making his major league playoff debut.
"I think this stage will be a good place for him to show what he can do," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said.
Besides Figgins, the only runner to get past first on Wednesday was Erick Aybar, who reached second in the eighth. Then Beckett needed just seven pitches to retire the side in the ninth.
"He was throwing the ball better than he has at any point in the season. He was in control of himself," Francona said. "That was a great performance."
Only Christy Mathewson, with four postseason shutouts, has more than Beckett's three. Whitey Ford and Mordecai Brown also have three.
Only two other pitchers have retired more than 19 consecutive batters in a postseason game
-- Don Larsen when he set down 27 straight in his perfect game for the New York Yankees in 1956 and Herb Pennock with 22 in a row for the Yankees in 1927.
"He's a guy that wants to be great," Boston third baseman Mike Lowell said. "He doesn't want to be pretty good. He wants to be the best guy that takes the mound. That's what you want from your ace."
In the clinching Game 6 of the 2003 World Series, Beckett allowed five hits and the Florida Marlins beat the Yankees 2-0.
His numbers were comparable in Wednesday's game.
"They're similar because of the results," Beckett said. "I don't think really anything else is similar. I think I got a lot of ground balls tonight. I got a lot of fly balls that night."
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He retired 12 Angels on grounders and only five on fly balls to the outfield.
They started swinging early in the count when they realized Beckett was putting the ball where he wanted to. He threw 83 of his 108 pitches for strikes and started 21 of the last 23 batters with first-pitch strikes, including 15 in a row.
"He was strike one all night," said Garret Anderson, who went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. "He didn't give us a chance where he had to worry about base runners."
Ortiz finished the season on a hot streak and continued it Wednesday with a single in the first after Youkilis' solo homer and a two-run homer in the third after Youkilis' double. John Lackey then walked Manny Ramirez and threw a wild pitch before allowing Lowell's run-scoring single in the third.
Lackey was 19-9 with an AL-best 3.01 ERA this year. But Wednesday's loss dropped him to 0-3 against the Red Sox this season and 1-7 in his career.
"They get to a lot of people," Lackey said. "That's why we're playing them right now. With Beckett pitching that way, it's going to be tough to hold down that kind of lineup with not getting much from your side."
In 2004, Ortiz eliminated the Angels with a 10th inning homer that ended the AL division series. The Red Sox then rallied after losing the first three games of the AL championship series to the Yankees and won the next four before sweeping St. Louis in the World Series.
"This is his time of year, too," Youkilis said of Ortiz. "For David to come out and have a big hit is always good. Because when David's confidence is high, this team succeeds."
But Beckett was the star of the series opener, just as he was the key to the closing game of the 2003 World Series, one year after Lackey won Game 7 of the World Series as a rookie for the Angels.
In the postseason, Beckett is 3-2 with a 1.74 ERA.
"You don't change a lot of things just because now you're in the postseason," Beckett said. "You do what made you successful to get here."
Notes: Beckett is the first pitcher with two straight postseason shutouts since current teammate Curt Schilling threw one with Philadelphia in 1993 and Arizona in 2001. Schilling is scheduled to pitch Game 3 Sunday in Anaheim against Jered Weaver. ... The Red Sox have won their last seven postseason games against the Angels. ... Los Angeles SS Orlando Cabrera, who played on Boston's 2004 championship team, was 0-for-4 with a strikeout and three groundouts. ... Ramirez has hit safely in 20 of his last 21 postseason games. ... Ortiz tied Jason Varitek for the franchise record with nine postseason homers.
[Associated Press;
by Howard Ulman]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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