On the one hand, it is fair to suggest that the baseball world did the Angels – and, more specifically, the Angels rotation – a disservice.

It seemed easy enough to look at the pitching matchups in Southern California and assume that the Red Sox were in tremendous position to claim an early advantage, or at least a split, in Southern California. Jon Lester and Josh Beckett were viewed as co-aces, the most dominating duo in the American League. John Lackey and Jered Weaver, meanwhile, were viewed as serviceable, but lacking the cachet of a legitimate No. 1. 

And yet it has been Lackey and Weaver who have absolutely overpowered their opponents in the first two games of the series. The two have allowed a total of six hits and one run in 14.2 innings. 

“Those guys are pretty good pitchers. They’re not just throwing balls underhand up there for us to whack away at,” said Sox outfielder Jason Bay. “If we faced [Yankees starters CC] Sabathia and [AJ] Burnett back to back, I don’t think anyone would be coming in and saying, ‘Hey, what’s wrong with the offense?’ 

“You tip your cap to good pitching. Just because we don’t face these guys all the time or they might not be throwing 97 mph, they’re still good pitchers,” he added. “We’re, for the most part, a good offensive team. That says something.” 

Even so, in Octobers past, the Sox have found a way to produce offense against top pitching. Until Thursday’s Game 1, the franchise had avoided a shutout in 69 straight games. 

The Sox offense is typically a case-study in grinding at-bats, especially in October, running up pitch counts by flicking pitches foul, forcing walks and keeping opponents working out of the stretch. None of that has been happening. 

So what gives? Have the Sox been taken out of their game because of the excellence of the Angels pitching, or do the hitters bear responsibility for the fact that the entire lineup has gone AWOL at the worst time imaginable? 

In the minds of the Sox, the answer is probably a bit of both. 

“I don’t want to take away credit from them. Their starters have done a great job,” said Sox third baseman Mike Lowell. “But I look at my at-bats, and there are pitches I feel like I should have driven and I’m flying out to right field. 

“They haven’t been perfect. They’ve been very good. I think it’s that combination: they’re doing a good job, but when we’re getting our pitch, we’ve hit a couple balls at people.” 

Weaver (16-8, 3.75 ERA) and Lackey (11-8, 3.83) put up the numbers of pitchers who were good, even very good, though less than overpowering. And yet they have looked as dominant as any pitchers in baseball in the first two games against the Sox. 

That does happen in baseball. On any given day, good pitchers become great. 

But it does bear mention that it has happened with remarkable frequency against the Sox this year, leading to suggestions that the lineup feasts on mediocre to bad pitchers, but is not up to the task of handling good pitchers. For the season, the numbers would seem to bear that out. 

There were 42 starting pitches in all of baseball who recorded an ERA of under 4.00 while pitching 162 or more innings this year. The Red Sox faced 20 of them in a total of 36 games. 

Some of the names on that list included the game’s best: Greinke (once), Sabathia (four times), Halladay (four times), Hernandez (once). But it also includes less glorified pitchers, such as John Lannan, Jeff Niemann and Kevin Millwood.   

In their 36 starts against the Sox, the 20 pitchers forged a combined 15-10 record and 2.72 ERA against the Sox. In 26 of the 36 starts (72.2 percent), they recorded quality starts.  meaning that the composite profile of those pitchers went from above-average to better than Roy Halladay (who finished the year 17-10 with a 2.79 ERA and recorded quality starts in 69 percent of his outings). By and large, good pitchers were great against the Red Sox this year, a trend that now seems to be carrying into October.

That said, the dominant work of the Angels starting staff down the stretch bears mention. In the club’s last 35 games (including the first two of the postseason), their starters have a combined 2.41 ERA. John Lackey and Jered Weaver have been not merely good but outrageously good.

The Angels have followed a solid formula thus far in the Division Series: get ahead in the count, stay out of the middle of the plate with strikes, paint the corners and then expand the zone, forcing the Sox to compromise the approach that has been the hallmark of their postseason success this decade.

“If you make any mistakes they're going to hurt you,” explained Weaver. “So any time you can get ahead with these guys and try to make them chase late, just locating the pitches, I think is huge.”

Thus far, the Sox have shown little ability to counteract such an approach, either in the first two games of the Division Series or in the regular season. Perhaps a return to Fenway Park, where the Sox had the best home-field offense in baseball with 5.9 runs per game and an .862 team OPS, will help the team to change that pattern.

Sometimes, the comforts of home can allow a team to return to its customary level of play. The Sox were, after all, one of the best offenses in baseball in the regular season, scoring 5.4 runs per game, just a shade behind the Yankees (5.6) and Angels (5.5) in runs per game in the majors.

It just hasn’t seemed that way against the better starters in baseball. Unless that changes soon, the Sox may find that their October plans come to a halt much earlier than expected.