BOSTON — When they ended the Curse of the Bambino, the Boston Red Sox were a charmed team, winning through modern medicine and magical means. But this isn't 2004, and the players' socks may be dirty, but they are not bloody.

The 2007 Red Sox are in their essence a very good team. They will be favored in the World Series, and the Colorado Rockies can't be happy to face them.

The Rockies waited six days to find out they'll play Boston, which will have growing legend Josh Beckett available for Game 1. Good luck with that.

Next to the Cleveland Indians themselves, the Rockies had to be the saddest people in the country to see how Boston stopped the Indians from becoming the third different American League Central team in the World Series in three years.

The Red Sox not only finished their escape from a three-games-to-one hole with an 11-2 victory in Sunday night's Game 7 of the AL Championship Series at Fenway Park, but they got enough pitching from Daisuke Matsuzaka, Hideki Okajima and Jonathan Papelbon that they didn't need to bring Beckett out of the bullpen. He was down there throwing when the Indians closed within 3-2 in the fifth inning, but he used that session as his off-day tuneup.

That keeps Beckett fresh to face Rockies lefty Jeff Francis when the Series begins Wednesday night in Boston.

No team crawls out of holes better than the Red Sox. They are 24-11 all time in elimination games, including 11-2 in their last four trips to the playoffs.

The only losses in that stretch came to the White Sox in the first round in 2005 (the Orlando Hernandez game) and the Yankees in the '03 ALCS. The wins included those four in a row to recover from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees in the '04 ALCS.

Compared with that, surviving three match points against Cleveland, which hasn't won the World Series since 1948, would be child's play. The Red Sox outscored the Indians 30-5 in the last three games, leading in 25 of 27 innings.

"We started clicking at the right time," Pedroia said. "We were down 3-1, but everybody kept believing."

Back in Denver, where there was snow on the ground Sunday, the Rockies had to be rooting hard to avoid Beckett. Instead of facing the best team in the majors and the toughest postseason pitcher, a win by Cleveland would have meant that Colorado could get three or four cracks against the exhausted C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona, who allowed 23 runs over 16 1/3 innings in their four starts.

Contrast that with Beckett and Curt Schilling, who are 5-0 with a 2.16 ERA in their six starts this postseason.

Colorado would have had a shot in a best-of-seven series against the Indians, but the goal against Boston should be to keep the Red Sox from celebrating at Coors Field after Game 4 or 5. It's hard to pick against a team that has won 21 of 22 games, but none of those wins came against a team as strong as the Red Sox.

There isn't one.