What does Colorado need to avoid sweep? You name it

World Series Coverage   Monday John Donovan: Rox, Sox built to last Albert Chen: Ellsbury an unlikely hero Joe Sheehan: Scenes, notes from clincher Red Sox celebrate World Series victory Sunday Sox clip Rockies 4-3 to win World Series John Donovan's Report Card for Game 4 Jon Heyman's 15 Greatest Mr. Octobers Lowell takes home Series MVP honors Dynasty in the making for Red Sox? Clock strikes midnight for Rockies' ride Time.com: Red Sox are the new Yankees Saturday Red Sox down Rockies 10-5, take 3-0 lead John Donovan's Report Card for Game 3 Tom Verducci: The Sox are superior John Donovan: The Coors Field factor Jon Heyman: Four keys to Game 3 Friday Melissa Segura: Corpas gets his wish John Donovan: Rockies' lumber slumber Jon Heyman: How the Sox got Beckett Joe Sheehan: Electric night at Fenway Thursday Schilling, bullpen shut down Rockies 2-1 John Donovan's Report Card for Game 2 Tom Verducci's five cuts for Thursday Albert Chen on the Red Sox's bullpen John Donovan: Rockies turn to a rookie Joe Sheehan: Postseason drama lacking Tale of the Tape: Rockies vs. Red Sox World Series Fungoes Joe Lemire on Rockies-Red Sox Schedule/Box Scores Game 1: Red Sox 13, Rockies 1 Game 2: Red Sox 2, Rockies 1 Game 3: Red Sox 10, Rockies 5 Game 4: Red Sox 4, Rockies 3

DENVER -- This is how things turn sometimes in baseball, and how things have most decidedly flipped for the Rockies this postseason: Less than a week ago, the Rocks were the hottest team in the game, riding an historic winning streak into the first World Series in the franchise's 15-year history. Sunday night, in Game 4 of the Series, it'll take everything the Rockies can muster -- everything they've failed to summon in the first three games of this Series -- to avoid being summarily swept by the Red Sox.

In three games over the past four nights, the Rockies have gone from a scrappy and talented young team destined for greatness to a weak, punchless, overmatched National League team falling at the hands of the mighty American League champion Sox. The Rocks have been outpitched. They've been outhit. They've been outhustled. They've been outsmarted and outworked. The Rockies have been, in a word, outed. They clearly aren't what they appeared to be a week ago.

"They're just kicking our asses, plain and simple," Colorado reliever LaTroy Hawkins was saying Saturday night after the latest beatdown, a 10-5 Boston win in Game 3 of the best-of-seven Series. "They're doing to us what we're used to doing to other teams."

No team ever has come back to win the best-of-seven Series after losing the first three games, so the Rockies know what they face. Still, it's not history that's particularly daunting here. History can wait.

Instead, Colorado is simply trying to find some way to slow down a team that is hitting .316 in 13 postseason games -- and .352 in the three games of the Series. The Rocks need to solve a pitching staff that has a 3.31 ERA in the 13 games it's played in the postseason, and one that has allowed the Rocks -- a team that scored more than five runs a game in the regular season -- only seven runs in the three games of the World Series. Colorado needs to find a way to get Todd Helton (.189 this postseason) and Troy Tulowitzki (.216) and Garrett Atkins (.162), all good hitters through the regular season, back on track. The Rockies need a solid outing from their starter on Sunday, Aaron Cook, and a suck-it-up performance from a battered bullpen.

They need to win. Just one game. After that they'll worry about history.

"Now it's do or die -- the ultimate do or die," reliever Matt Herges said. "But we were in this position pretty much the last month of the season."

For the Rockies, this Series is threatening to become historic in a completely wrong way. If they don't flip things around and win Sunday -- or at least play a closer game -- the Rockies will go down with one other team in providing perhaps the lamest debut ever for a first-timer in the World Series. (The '05 Astros were swept by the White Sox, hitting just .203 with a 4.58 ERA.)

The Rockies, through three games, have a .222 average and a 9.00 ERA.

"[The Red Sox] are good. They're a World Series team. Obviously they're good," said Colorado's Game 3 starter, Josh Fogg, who lasted only 2 2/3 innings against the Sox. "But we're a good team, too."

Sunday night, the Rockies get their chance to back up those so-far empty words when they turn to Cook, a sinkerball specialist who hasn't started a game in more than two months because of a pulled oblique muscle. Cook, the team's Opening Day starter, has done a rehab assignment or two in the minor leagues and pitched in a few simulated games over the past couple of weeks. But this will be his first real start since Aug. 10, when he lasted six innings in a loss to the Cubs.

His first mission is to keep the top of the Boston lineup off the bases, at least once in a while. In the three games of the Series, the top two hitters in the Red Sox order (a combination of Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis and Jacoby Ellsbury) are hitting .407 (11-for-27) with seven runs scored, seven RBIs, six doubles and a home run.

"I know I'm going to feel strong," Cook said, "but at the same time, I know I'm probably not going to have that mid- to upper-90 [mph] velocity that I once had."

The Sox will send Jon Lester, a 23-year-old lefty who has returned after offseason treatment for lymphoma, to the mound. Lester has appeared in two games in relief this October. This will be his first postseason start.

The Rockies last lost three in a row in mid-September, when they dropped a game in Philadelphia and then two more at home against the Marlins. Right after that, though, they went on their historic streak, winning 11 straight, losing a game, and then putting up 10 more wins, the last seven of them in the postseason.

Now they've finally run into a team that looks, by every indication, to be the better team.

So what can the Rockies possibly do against that?

"We gotta go out and kick and claw and punch and do everything we can to win a game," Hawkins said. "You gotta be optimistic. You've got to be very optimistic."