Patience a virtue for Boston, but it’s a curse for Colorado

DENVER -- The Boston Red Sox play on, and on, and on. If you live in Boston, and you live to root on the Red Sox during the playoffs, you can count on staying up till midnight, and beyond.

This is by design, and not only by the design of Fox. The Red Sox take pitches, foul pitches, take pitches, and every once in a while hit pitches. They drive opposing pitchers batty with their patience, and they make a three-hour game appear as old-fashioned as a VHS player.

And they win. The Red Sox put on an offensive clinic in the first two games of the World Series, exhausting the opposing starter and emerging with a victory both times. The series resumes tonight at Coors Field, with the Colorado Rockies desperately seeking their first victory.

There is no mystery to what the Red Sox do: take pitches, work counts, draw walks, tire starters out, get fat against middle relievers. The antidote: throw strikes. Easier said than done, when you have to do it again and again just to get one out, and when the hitters are too good to simply throw the ball down the middle.

“Nobody is perfect,” Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek said. “You can have a repertoire of pitches, but to be perfect for nine innings? That doesn’t happen too often.”

Take Game 2: The Rockies started rookie Ubaldo Jimenez, who dominated the first two innings, with a fastball up to 98 mph. Jimenez threw six pitches in the first inning and did not give up a hit or walk in the first two innings.

“When everybody won’t swing at bad pitches, you need to have stuff like Jimenez,” Boston slugger David Ortiz said. “He had real explosive stuff. That’s why he was getting quick outs.”

But the Red Sox wore him down. In the second inning, every Boston batter took the first pitch for a called strike. In the third, every Boston batter took the first two pitches. With two out, Dustin Pedroia walked on four pitches, Kevin Youkilis walked on eight pitches, Ortiz struck out on seven.

The Red Sox still had not scored. But they parlayed two walks into a run in the fourth inning and a two-out walk into another run in the fifth, as Jimenez’s velocity dropped as low as 89 mph and Mike Lowell delivered a double for Boston’s first extra-base hit.

Jimenez, untouchable in the first inning, did not survive the fifth. He threw 91 pitches in 4 2/3 innings, including 72 in his final 2 2/3 innings.

For the Red Sox, mission accomplished, again. In Boston’s 12 playoff games, against such distinguished pitchers as John Lackey, C.C. Sabathia, Kelvim Escobar and Fausto Carmona, opposing starters averaged 4.9 innings and 93 pitches.

“When you’re facing the best pitchers, you have to wear them down,” Youkilis said. “You have to foul off pitches. You have to lay off pitches just off the corners. Those are pitchers’ pitches.”

Said Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan: “Those are all things that can wear on a team, especially in the postseason, when you might see a team seven times. If you can get in the bullpen and force them to use long guys, that makes it tough.

“Teams aren’t built around long guys. They’re built around the guys at the end of the game and the starting pitchers.”

That’s why Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein said he appreciated the execution even more in Game 1. Colorado ace Jeff Francis faced 24 batters, with four swinging at the first pitch. He threw 30 pitches in the first inning, 32 in the fourth and did not return for the fifth.

That was the inning in which the Red Sox scored seven runs against relievers Franklin Morales and Ryan Speier, with Speier forcing home three runs on bases-loaded walks.

“Make hay against middle relief,” Epstein said.

The Rockies threw 197 pitches in Game 1 and 149 in Game 2. The Red Sox drew an average of 157 pitches during the regular season, tied with the Yankees for the most in the major leagues.

“When hitters take pitches, you don’t know what they are thinking,” Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell said. “An aggressive hitter will show his hand, and you can use that to your advantage. When a hitter is patient, that’s when the chess match begins.

“Inevitably, for a pitcher, there can be distractions. That’s when mistakes can be made.”

This model is not adaptable to every team, or every hitter. This works for the Red Sox in part because their best hitters, Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, are comfortable working the count, taking a called strike, hitting with two strikes. And that works, Magadan said, because Ortiz and Ramirez have short swings that enable them to wait longer than most hitters and chase fewer pitches.

This would not work for Vladimir Guerrero, who has prospered with a long swing and hit-everything approach. The Red Sox are convinced patience and plate discipline cannot be taught at the major league level, skeptical whether those skills can be taught at any level.

“Generally, we feel it’s something you’re born with,” Epstein said.

“It’s hard to find guys that have that approach,” Magadan said. “It takes a conscious effort, from rookie ball all the way to the major leagues, to build a team around that philosophy.”

That is why the Red Sox hand each kid they draft an organizational handbook, teaching that philosophy in detail.

“There are kids in A ball right now watching these games and recognizing this approach,” Epstein said.

If fans must choose between catching the end of the game and getting a good night’s sleep, the Red Sox offer no apologies.

“You hear announcers complain about how long the games are,” Magadan said. “This is my livelihood. I’m not going to complain if games are five hours because we’re scoring 10 or 12 runs.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

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Rack ‘em up

The Red Sox force opposing starters to throw so many pitches that no one has completed seven innings against them in the playoffs. Here’s a look:

*--* ALDS vs. Angels Starter IP Pitches Lackey 6 99 Escobar 5 101 Weaver 5 95 ALCS vs. Cleveland Starter IP Pitches Sabathia 4.1 85 Carmona 4 100 Westbrook 6.2 104 Byrd 5 73 Sabathia 6 112 Carmona 2 63 Westbrook 6 94 World Series vs. Colorado Starter IP Pitches Francis 4 103 Jimenez 4.2 91 *--*

Los Angeles Times