A lopsided loss levels Colorado

BOSTON -- Rocky Mountain sigh.

The first three Colorado hitters looked as if they had been shoved into a storm without a coat, lunging, jerking, shivering, strikeout, strikeout, strikeout.

Rocky Mountain cry.

The second Colorado pitch looked as if it had been tossed into a blender without a top, whipped, walloped, soaring, home run.

Rocky Mountain bye-bye?

The World Series is far from over, but just three hours in, the sense of destiny surrounding its daring darlings is already long gone, the Colorado Rockies stumbling away from Fenway’s dark alleys Wednesday with their inspiration muddied and their resilience ripped.

This wasn’t baseball, it was bad reality TV.

It was the Boston Red Sox 13, Rockies 1, a historic beating with a somewhat historic ending.

Yeah, it was so lopsided, even Eric Gagne pitched.

“It was one game, just one game,” protested Rockies pitcher Matt Herges in a quietly dazed Colorado Rockies clubhouse afterward.

One game that dashed the lofty illusions of a month. One game that stripped the bright paint from a clubhouse. One game that changed everything.

“We’ve lost before, we’ll lose again,” protested Rockies pitcher Jeff Francis. “There’s still some World Series’ left.”

None of it that will contain the aura that the Rockies so charmingly carted here.

A team that won 21 of its previous 22 games? That magic ended in five innings, the score finalized by then thanks to a Red Sox pounding that included a Series record eight doubles.

“We have to come up with a different plan after the beating we took tonight,” said the Rockies’ Todd Helton.

A starting pitching staff that yielded 10 earned runs in their seven previous postseason games? They yielded 13 runs in one night, with not one but two of their starting pitchers trashed, Francis giving up six runs, then Franklin Morales coming out of the bullpen to give up seven more.

“They’re an offensive juggernaut, folks think they’re the best team in the big leagues, and when you don’t execute pitches, they smoke it,” said Rockies’ reliever Matt Herges.

A bullpen that had walked a total of five batters in the postseason? They walked four in one night, including three consecutive bases-loaded walks by Ryan Speier in what was surely one of the most intimidated pitching performances in Series history.

Even when facing the bottom of the Red Sox order, the poor guy was so overwhelmed during his three-batter outing that the Rockies’ brain trust could be seen in the dugout just shrugging and shaking their heads.

“We’ve got some things we can work on,” said Rockies Manager Clint Hurdle.

And baseball’s best fielding team? Outfielders Matt Holliday failed to cut off a line drive by David Ortiz in the second inning, allowing it to roll to the wall, giving him a double and scoring a run and fueling the rout.

Everything that was supposedly good about the Rockies was bad. Everything cute was crass. Everything hopeful was helpless.

And later in that clubhouse, everything loud was silent.

“We’ve got two options,” said Herges. “We can say, ‘OK, we’re done.’ Or we can do what we’ve done all year and not let this get us down.”

Two options, and two questions.

Were their problems due to the cobwebs accumulated from a record eight-day layoff before the Series?

Or are they really, as I previously suggested in this space, simply that overmatched?

The Rockies didn’t want to use the rust excuse. But they were thinking it.

“First, if you are going to have a long layoff, Josh Beckett is not the pitcher you want to see first,” said Herges.

Oh yeah, Beckett. The sneering Texan was overshadowed by his hitters, but blinding to the Rockies, continuing his postseason mastery by allowing one run in seven innings with nine strikeouts. Three of those strikeouts came in an eye-opening first inning that silenced the Rockies dugout for the rest of the game.

“They had their stud out there, and he just shoved it,” said Herges.

The Rockies also quietly believe the rust affected the pitchers, particularly since they were unable to finish batters and innings, the Red Sox patiently whittling them into dust.

Of the 13 runs, 11 were scored with two outs, and several rallies were started with two strikes.

It turns out, Dustin Pedroia’s leadoff homer -- he’s only the second player to lead off a World Series opener with a home run -- was the least of Francis’ problems.

“If I could have just stopped them there, that’s no big deal, we can come back from that,” Francis said. “It’s what happened later. It was my failure to execute my two-out and two-strike pitches.”

He was beaten by Manny Ramirez in dirty pajamas. David Ortiz on one leg. Kevin Youkilis with sweat dripping from his bald head into his goatee.

The Rockies were beaten by a team that has its own little postseason streak going, four wins and counting, the Red Sox’s chest swelling and confidence building with each lunging line drive into the corner.

“We definitely have a lot of momentum going,” acknowledged Youkilis.

It is a momentum not just created, but a momentum also stolen, one victory that felt like four victories, the slow and painful uncovering of a Rocky Mountain lie.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.