McAdam: Scoring early (and yes, often) has proved to be the right formula for Red Sox

Baseball history is littered with late-inning heroes: Bill Mazeroski. Carlton Fisk. Kirk Gibson. Joe Carter.

They all saved their best for last (at-bats) and sent their team home victorious with a swing in the ninth inning or later.

But there's nothing against the rules about scoring early to stake your team to an early lead and putting them on the right path from the beginning. That's a game plan the Red Sox have executed again and again this month. It happened in the American League Division Series and again in the American League Championship Series. So why would it change in the World Series?

The Red Sox didn't take long to "do damage'' against Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1. After Chris Sale held the Dodgers off the board in the top of the first, the Red Sox went right to work with their bats.

Mookie Betts led with a single, stole second and rode home on a sharp single to right from Andrew Benintendi. When J.D. Martinez chipped in with a single up the middle, Benintendi, who had alertly taken second when Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig threw home in an ill-conceived attempt to throw out Betts, scored easily on Martinez's single.

Four batters in, it was 2-0 Red Sox. It marked the fifth time in 10 postseason games Boston had scored at least one run in the first inning and the eighth time in those 10 games in which it scored before the opponent. Not surprisingly, the Sox are 8-0 when they score first this postseason, mirroring the kind of success they had under such circumstances in the regular season when they were 74-15.

"We've been trying to do that all postseason,'' said Benintendi after the Sox had posted an 8-4 win, "and for the most part, it seems like we've been able to do that so far. Maybe it puts pressure on them right away. Hopefully, we can keep doing it.''

"When we put one on the board first,'' noted Betts, "it seems to work well for us. That's kind of the goal.''

It wasn't just that the Red Sox raced out to a quick 2-0 lead. It was how they got there, with Betts taking off and swiping second a handful of pitches into the inning. None of this was by accident — aggressiveness was the order of the day -- both in their at-bats against Kershaw and their approach on the basepaths.

"I think we've done it all year,'' said hitting coach Tim Hyers. "Step on the pedal and let's go. Take it your opponent and not sit back and wait for something to happen. Alex (Cora) has done it the whole year, with hit-and-runs, first inning, let's go. So I think this team really enjoys that. That's the type of team we are. It's kind of like you see in basketball, that run-and-gun. Fast break, let's go. That's part of their DNA.

"Especially at the top of the order. They get it started and the bottom feeds off of that.''

"From the first at-bat, we put pressure on them,'' agreed Cora. "That's what we do.''

And like a quality football team, the Red Sox saw some value in establishing their running game early. There was the steal by Betts, which led to a run. And there was Benintendi taking second on Puig's throw home, setting up the second one. And even though Martinez got himself picked off by Kershaw, caught leaning the wrong way, that style put the Dodgers on notice, right from the start.

"It's huge,'' said Betts. "From the beginning, we play aggressive and in a spot like that, just let them know that we weren't going to ease into it. Right off the bat, we're going 100 miles an hour and it ended up playing out well."