By PETER KERASOTIS
Florida Today

MIAMI - He pulled on a pinstripe suit and white shirt, and if you shaved the dark fuzz off Josh Beckett's chin, he might've looked like a kid fresh out of college starting his first job.

Marlins pitcher Josh Beckett reacts at the end of a 2-hit, 4-0 shutout over the Chicago Cubs in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. (AP photo) | ZOOM |

Beckett's about that age, after all. Just 22. Hard to believe, then, that his actual job Sunday was to simply save the Florida Marlins' season and stave off the Chicago Cubs for at least one more game.

Beckett did.

The big right-hander pitched the game of his life before 65,279 fans at Pro Player Stadium, a sparkling two-hit, 11-strikeout, complete game shutout that pulled the Marlins to a 3-2 deficit in this National League Championship Series.

"Josh was unhittable, just unhittable," gushed Marlins catcher Pudge Rodriguez, who basically played a game of pitch and catch with Beckett. The Cubs were up there taking their swings, but other than a pair of singles and a screaming foul ball off the bat of Aramis Ramirez that missed being a homer by inches, they may as well have not even been at the plate.

"He was amazing, and considering how young he is, he was even more amazing," said Marlins left fielder Jeff Conine, who hit a solo home run that put the game at its final 4-0 tally. "Josh told me the other day that he was pitching in high school in 1999, and I about fell over. The guy's mature beyond his years."

But even the mature ones have been known to bow to pressure.

Beckett didn't.

And as he dressed in the Marlins' post-game clubhouse, his eyes were still, his expression stoic, his mood sedate. You would hardly even know that just an hour or so earlier, he almost got into it with Sammy Sosa. In the fourth inning, Beckett threw a pitch high and tight that Sosa found fault with, angrily shouting at Beckett as he took some steps out of the batter's box.

Beckett shouted back.

Then Rodriguez, who once upon a time came up in the Texas Rangers' organization with Sosa, got in front of the Cubs' slugger and calmed him down.

"I was telling him that we weren't trying to hit him, that the pitch just got away from Josh," Pudge said.

As the catcher and the slugger talked, Beckett came over and took the ball out of Pudge's glove and marched back to the mound, ready to fire more fastballs. It was really the only time, until the game's final out, that Beckett displayed any emotion. His flared anger especially showed when he finally got to pitch again to Sosa, and his fastballs bumped up against 100 mph as he struck out the slugger.

"I think he overreacted a lot, if you ask me," Beckett said. "Maybe he was trying to pull a Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees thing, I don't know. But I thought it was really stupid that we had to go through that. You try not to react to it, but your adrenaline gets going after something like that, and I could tell I was overthrowing a little. But I was able to control it. And that's the key."

It sure is. Controlling his adrenaline, his emotions, his pitches was what Beckett was all about for the entire game. And for him, the entire game meant pitching the first complete game of his major league career.

He couldn't have picked a bigger moment.

And he refused to let the moment overwhelm him.

"I slept fine the night before," Beckett said, shrugging nonchalantly. "But I always sleep well. I don't have any problem with that, because I love to sleep. And before the game, I was watching my Houston Texans on TV, upset at what Steve McNair was doing to them. I wasn't nervous, really. Yeah, I mean, you know that it's a big game. But you try not to focus on that. You can't let all that get to you. If you think about the result, it corrupts the process."

If he had thought about the result, his Marlins teammates might've been watching a repeat performance from what they saw from Dontrelle Willis, their other young pitcher who is just three months away from his 22nd birthday. Willis gave up six runs to the Cubs in Saturday's Game 4, and couldn't even make it through the third inning, basically taking these comeback Marlins out of the game before it even got a chance to get going.

If you're a young pitcher watching a performance like that from the dugout, it can put doubt in your mind.

Beckett didn't.

Instead, he looked at Kerry Woods' performance in Game 3, when the Cubs' big right-hander and fellow Texan threw smoke at the Marlins.

"I was watching him, and I thought, 'Maybe that's what I need to do. Maybe I need to throw more and think less. Maybe I need to just throw it hard like Kerry Wood."'

It wasn't quite that easy, though Beckett might've made it look that way.

The great ones, though, do make it look easy.

Beckett was great for a big game, but he really isn't a great one yet, but that's only because he's so young.

Sunday night, after the game, he looked young enough to be a fresh college graduate dressing for his first day on the job. A junior executive, perhaps, instead of a major league pitcher who just saved his team's season for at least another game.

"When you think about what you just did," someone asked Beckett, "what goes through your mind?"

"Honestly?" Beckett replied.

Everybody leaned closer.

"Honestly, what I'm thinking is that I want to get on that plane and kick everybody's butt playing cards, like I've been doing all season. That's what I'm thinking right now."

He smiled, finished dressing, and headed for a flight.

Beckett and the rest of the Florida Marlins were heading to Chicago now, instead of home, thanks mostly to him.

Bringing the power

The Cubs and Marlins have shattered the record for the most home runs by both teams in any baseball playoff series. A look at the rest of the top series:

19: Chicago 10, Florida 9, five games, 2003-x

14: San Francisco 7, St. Louis 7, five games, 2002

13: Atlanta 7, Colorado 6, four games, 1995

13: Los Angeles 8, Philadelphia 5, four games, 1978

13: Pittsburgh 8, San Francisco 5, four games, 1971

12: Atlanta 8, St. Louis 4, seven games, 1996

12: Philadelphia 7, Atlanta 5, six games, 1993

x- denotes still active

Note: The major-league record is 22, set by Seattle and New York in five games in 1995.