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Jonathan Papelbon isn't one for flinching. So when he was asked Saturday if he wondered how Jason Bay would adjust to playing in Boston — the regular season, let alone the playoffs — he was as honest as a mid-90s fastball.

"I did have questions," the Boston Red Sox's closer said, shrugging. "I'm sure everybody did. But I think he's answered them. Don't you? It takes a level-headed player to come into this environment and have success, and he's about as level-headed as they come.

"This has been kind of fun, watching him and Manny. It's almost like that old song: 'Anything you can do, I can do better.'"

It certainly appears that way. Bay, the Trail, B.C., native who joined the Red Sox at the Major League trade deadline in a three-way trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Los Angeles Dodgers that saw Manny Ramirez go to the Dodgers, is 5-for-9 with two home runs and five runs batted in through the first two games of the Red Sox's American League Division Series against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Bay is the first Red Sox's player to ever homer in his first two career playoff games and the 14th player all-time to do so.

Matt Holliday of the Colorado Rockies turned the trick in 2007 while Rondell White performed a similar feat four years apart — homering for the New York Yankees in 2002 and homering for the Minnesota Twins in 2006. White is the last AL player to do so.

Most of the Red Sox's regulars attended Saturday's optional workout, except for David Ortiz and Coco Crisp. Bay, who'd been subjected to a lengthy, eye-rolling radio interview with ESPN for about 20 minutes — journalism students: it's a bad sign when somebody shows up with a microphone and a print-out sheet of questions - dressed quickly for the workout and departed with equal haste, stopping for a quick hello. Yeah, he appears to have this postseason thing down pat.

Bay said after his two-run homer in Game 1 that he tried to imagine how the first player to every bat in the first-ever postseason game felt. After his three-run homer in Game 2, Bay told reporters: "Before the game you're nervous, but once you're out there you embrace the atmosphere and use it to your advantage."

Red Sox's manager Terry Francona said he's leaning toward sitting out J.D. Drew against Angels left-hander Joe Saunders. Mike Lowell, who is bothered by a painful hip injury, is expected to start. Angels manager Mike Scioscia seems to be talking himself out of benching Howie Kendrick, who has been lost at the plate in the series.

Torii Hunter, however, is ready to go. Hunter wrenched his knee jumping up and down protesting a close call at first base in Game 2.

"Torii should be good to go," said Scioscia. "We'll hold him out of batting practice (during Saturday's workout) but we gave him a chance to move around a bit and he's okay."

The Red Sox have won their last nine postseason games, compiling a 2.22 earned run average in that time. Their starters are 8-0 (1.95) and they'll send out big-game specialist Josh Beckett in Game 3.

Beckett, who was pushed back due to discomfort in his oblique muscle, has won his last five playoff starts and has a 0.92 ERA since losing to the Yankees in Game 3 of the 2003 World Series. He dismissed questions about pitching through aches and pains in the playoffs.

"Some of them, it's really easy to do because you just beat them with chemistry," he said. "I think all of us were preparing for me to make this start all along. We have a pretty good staff of doctors and generally, whenever they keep reiterating the same thing to you, you start to believe it."

The Red Sox have won their last 11 playoff games against the Angels, a major league record for consecutive wins for a team over a single opponent. In those 11 games, the Red Sox are batting .296, and they're 6-1 at Fenway Park. The Angels, then, appear to be in the process of being swept aside for the second time in as many years.

The Angels have won the last eight regular-season game against the Red Sox, out-scoring the Red Sox 42-17.

Francona chose his words carefully when explaining his teams postseason dominance over the Angels. But this much is clear: the Red Sox's advance scouts have done yeoman's work. And the Red Sox's pitchers, and catcher Jason Varitek, are carrying that over to the field.

"It's different than the regular season, because you don't have the ability to do things with your bullpen or your starting rotation over the course of the regular season the way you do in the playoffs," Francona said.

"I mean, there were numerous times in the regular season where we would get to the sixth, seventh innings — game on the line — and we couldn't close it out. It started to happen in Game 2, and we snuffed it out. Three or four times during the year, we'd lead 3-2, 4-3, they'd get it going and we couldn't snuff it out."