BoSox beat Halos at home to open al playoffs

With the Red Sox top starter Josh Beckett nursing an injury, John Lester was called up on take his place as the ALDS Game 1 starter. He responded in impressive fashion, outpitching John Lackey as the Red Sox took the opening contest of the series on the road with a 4-1 win over the LA Angels in Anaheim.

Lester gave up 1 run on 6 hits and rung up 7 strikeouts in seven innings of work. While Lackey was certainly in impressive form allowing only 4 hits in 6 2/3 innings of work he gave up a 2 run HR to Jason Bay that plated the eventual game winning run. The Red Sox would go on to add two more in the top of the ninth off of Scot Shields, and Jonathan Papelbon sealed the deal with his 5th postseason save. Papelbon extended his postseason scoreless streak to 15 2/3 innings in the process.

The Angels dominated the Red Sox during the regular season, en route to the best record in Major League baseball. LA won 8 of 9 games, outscoring Boston 42-17 in the final six contests. In October, however, the tables have been turned in recent years and Wednesday’s victory marked the Red Sox 10th straight postseason victory over the Angels. That represents the longest postseason winning streak over a single opponent in major league history. Since winning the 2002 World Series, the Angels have struggled in the postseason. Wednesday’s loss represented their 8th in 10 home games since then.

Game two of the series will take place Friday night, with the Angels sending Ervin Santana to the mount against Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka in an attempt to pull even. Interestingly, AL teams that lose the first game of divisional series have remained competitive—teams in that spot are 14-14 for the series. In the National League, however, the first game loss has been something of a death knell for teams as they’ve gone on to win in only 4 of 28 series.