Baseball Championships

CHICAGO -- There was an unusual amount of facial hair on Chad Billingsley's boyish face Wednesday, but the 24-year-old right-hander said he wasn't growing a playoff beard. "I haven't had a start in a long time," Billingsley said. Billingsley says he only shaves on the day of his starts, something he hasn't had in eight days. He plans to maintain his routine this morning, though not everything about the latest cycle in his life is routine.

Jason Bay had never played on a winning team before being traded to Boston in the July deal that sent Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers. So this whole idea of playing baseball in October is new to him. "The last few years I've been home at this point," he said. "But I'm trying not to make too big a deal out of it. Try to make it as normal as possible."

Uh oh. The streaks live, all of them, all the haunting October memories the Angels could have extinguished with one victory. It took the Angels six months to earn home-field advantage, three hours to lose it. It took the Angels six months to win 100 games, three hours to turn their next game into a must-win.

Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said he did not consider using Reggie Willits to pinch-run for Vladimir Guerrero on Wednesday night after the slugger reached on a one-out single in the eighth inning, with the Angels trailing the Red Sox, 2-1. Guerrero, slowed in September by an irritated right knee, tried to go from first to third on Torii Hunter's bloop hit over first baseman Kevin Youkilis' head, running through third base coach Dino Ebel's stop sign, and was thrown out by about eight feet.

CHICAGO -- Cubs second baseman Mark DeRosa was asked if Thursday night's game against the Dodgers was "do or die" for Chicago in the best-of-five National League division series. "Yeah, I think it's pretty do or die," he said. "I do. You don't want to get on that 4 1/2 -hour plane flight [to Los Angeles] down 0-2." But Cubs Manager Lou Piniella strongly disagreed. "You've got to win three ballgames in these things," he said.

CHICAGO -- Takashi Saito is the Dodgers' closer again -- at least that's what Saito said he was told by pitching coach Rick Honeycutt at the start of the National League division series. Saito didn't fool the Cubs in the ninth inning of Game 2, giving up two runs on two doubles and a single, but for him to pitch at all is almost a medical miracle. "For me to be here with my teammates at this time of the year," Saito said, "I really can only think that I had luck on my side."

CHICAGO -- Do you believe in curses? How else do you explain what happened Thursday night at Wrigley Field, where the National League's best defensive team suddenly turned into the worst?

This could be the rare matchup that drives the purists and the stat-heads nuts. Live from Anaheim: The team most likely to swing at a bad pitch, against the pitcher most likely to throw one. The Angels are the team. Daisuke Matsuzaka is the pitcher. Patience will be a virtue at Angel Stadium tonight, but only in the visiting dugout. If Matsuzaka had to pitch against his teammates, he would wilt in the third or fourth inning.

When Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia showed up at Colorado's Coors Field during last year's World Series, he was denied entry by a security guard who mistook him for a fan. Watch Pedroia play, however, and it's hard not to mistake him for a 10-year veteran. But then the same could be said about several players on the Red Sox's youthful roster, who share more than just a limited number of birthdays. "Yeah," said Mike Lowell, at 34 the fourth-oldest player on the team.

What frustrates Manager Mike Scioscia about the Angels' recent postseason struggles isn't so much the nine-game playoff losing streak after Friday's 7-5 loss to Boston, but the manner in which they lost most of those games, playing nowhere close to their potential. "The [Red Sox] are a terrific club and we're a terrific club," Scioscia said before Game 2.