Boston pitchers Curt Schilling and Hideki Okajima frustrated rival batters to guide the Red Sox to a 2-1 win over Colorado Rockies and take a 2-0 lead in the 103rd World Series.

Boston's Mike Lowell scored one run and drove in another to provide all the scoring the Red Sox needed to move halfway toward their second title in four seasons in Major League Baseball's best-of-seven championship final.

"Regardless of us being up 2-0, whatever percentages say, it's irrelevant," Schilling said. "We're both here because we really didn't pay attention to statistics. We played the games at hand.

"We've got a tough challenge ahead of us. We've made enough mistakes that have cost us a little bit and put ourselves in a hole," Clint Hurdle, the Rockies manager, said. "I anticipate us playing better baseball when we get home."

After a 13-1 thrashing in game one, the most runs and biggest defeat in any Series opener, Colorado opened the scoring in the first inning through Todd Helton.

But they could not capitalise on their lead and Lowell scored the American League champions' first run in the fourth and drove in the go-ahead run in the fifth on a double into the left-field corner.

Schilling allowed one run on four hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out four, and improved to 11-2 in career playoff games, including a 3-0 run this year.

"He got the ball where he wanted with more consistency," Hurdle said. "He was able to get the ball down and away. He mixed up his pitches. He was able to change speeds, work in his splitter and throw some curves."

Okajima, the first Japanese pitcher to appear in a World Series, matched season highs with four strikeouts in 2 1/3 relief innings, retiring all seven Rockies batters he faced.

"OKajima was perfect, just absolutely perfect every single pitch," Schilling said. "And that's a hell of a lineup to go through."

The Rockies have paid dearly for giving up 15 walks in two games. "It's disappointing. It puts you into positions you don't want to get into," Hurdle said. "We've got to find a way to correct it."

The closest Colorado came to equalizing came in the sixth when Schilling allowed a Holliday single and walked Helton before being replaced by Okajima.

The Series now shifts to Denver for game three on Saturday with Japan's Daisuke Matsuzaka throwing for Boston against Colorado's Josh Fogg. No team in World Series history has lost the first three games and rallied to capture the crown.