Who Needs A Couple Of 19-Game Winners?

Forget C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona. The Cleveland Indians have Jake Westbrook and Paul Byrd! These two underwhelming righties have kept the Boston offense off-balance and have given the Tribe pitching staff the boost it so desperately needed in Games 3 and 4. Now, Cleveland is just a win away from a World Series date with the, still white-hot Colorado Rockies. More on the boys in purple in a minute.

Meantime, Beckett vs. Sabathia: Round 2 is tomorrow night in Cleveland at 8, on FOX. Let's hope Tim McCarver's mic is broken or he has whooping cough because his color commentary ruins a baseball game faster than a pug puppy ruins a white carpet. At least the little guy with a tail is cuter, and easier to forgive.

Simply put, Sabathia has looked like crud in his 2 postseason starts. He has yet to see the 6th inning and has yet to walk fewer than 5 hitters. Beckett on the other hand has given up 2 earned in 15 innings this year, running his career postseason mark to 4-2 with a 1.87 ERA, 3 CGs and 62 Ks in 57 2/3 IP. Oh, by the way, he's never lost a postseason series.

So what does this tell us?

Well, Tribe fans would say Beckett is due to get ripped and that Sabathia is too good a pitcher to have a third lousy outing. Sox fans would argue there's no way Beckett doesn't dominate with his team facing elimination, and that the Sox have Sabathia's number.

My guess is these two cancel each other out (say, 1 earned apiece over 7) and the bullpens decide this one. In other words, advantage Indians.

Whoever emerges from this series, they'll eventually have to take on the Colorado Rockies, winners of a simply unimaginable 21 of 22, including 10 in a row (7 of which are playoff games). Prior to their current 10 game winning streak, they were on an 11-game winning streak.

Here's a fun fact. The last team to have an undefeated postseason (i.e. sweep all their opponents) was the 1976 Cincinnati Reds, led by the likes of Bench, Rose, Morgan, and Foster. But in those days, there were only 2 rounds, not 3 like today, and the league championship series was a best of 5, not best of 7, so they only had to win 7 games (still an impressive feat though).

Can you imagine if the Colorado Rockies sweep the Indians or Red Sox and close out the season having won 25 of 26, including 14 in a row and all 11 of their playoff games? If they do, it will have to rank among the most improbable and unrepeatable team achievements in sports history.