Don't be.

The Boston Red Sox aren't.

Why should they be?

Best in the regular season isn't good enough in the postseason.

Two games into the AL Division Series and history is haunting the Angels — again. The Red Sox toyed with the Angels on Friday night before settling on a 7-5 victory in Game 2 of the AL Division Series at Angel Stadium.

The Sox even let the Angels rally from a 5-1 deficit to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth.

Not for long, though. Even with record-setting closer Francisco Rodriguez on the mound, the Angels couldn't slow the Red Sox down. David Ortiz led off the ninth with a double. One out later, J.D. Drew finished off the Angels. He unloaded a two-run home run and piled on the burden that the Angels have been carrying.

Maybe it was symbolic that during a pre-playoff rally that drew around 20,000 people on Monday, Angels center fielder Torii Hunter was emceeing the event and a monkey jumped on his back.

"Scared me a little bit," he said. "I thought it was going to (urinate on me)."

The monkey was quickly put under control, but this postseason gorilla that is weighing the Angels down can't be shaken.

The Angels won the AL West by 21 games. Big deal? Well, fifth-place Detroit finished only 14½ back of the AL Central champion Chicago White Sox. Fifth-place San Diego was 21 games back of the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Only six major-league teams finished more than 20 games out of first place, and three of them were Texas, Oakland and Seattle, the second-, third- and fourth-place teams behind the Angels in the AL West.

Heck, the Angels even had the upper hand on the Red Sox in the regular season, winning eight out of nine, including sweeping three-game series both home and away in July.

This, however, is, as they say, a new season. It's the postseason.

And the history is haunting the Angels, even though they did win a World Series in 2002.They didn't have to play the Red Sox to get there that time.

This time, again, it's the Red Sox, and they are a roadblock for the Angels.Back-to-back wins in the first two games of the AL Division Series give the Red Sox 11 consecutive postseason wins against the Angels, a major-league record. It started with the Red Sox rallying to win the final three games of the 1986 AL Championship Series, a comeback that began with David Henderson's home run off Donnie Moore, who later committed suicide. Then came three-game sweeps in the 2004 and 2007 AL Division Series.

And now this.

On a night in which Daisuke Matsuzaka was very beatable, the Angels couldn't beat them. They scored three runs in five innings. They trailed, 5-3, when he turned the game over to the bullpen. They stranded six runners in scoring position.

Heck, they had 19 singles and nothing more in the first 16 innings of this postseason until Chone Figgins led off the eighth with a triple, eventually scoring the run that briefly tied the score at 5-5 on Mark Teixeira's sacrifice fly.

The revitalized Ervin Santana was given first-inning shock therapy. He got the first two batters out with ease. The next four, however, got Santana, capped off by a three-run Jason Bay home run and a 4-0 Boston lead. But then this is the postseason. The Angels should have known better than to get too giddy about that 16-7 regular-season record Santana put together.

Now it's Fenway Park, the Red Sox's home, where the Angels will be looking for a cure to what ails them.

The managers are playing it cool.

"That's so far in the past," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said of that winning streak that started 22 years ago. "In about 10 minutes (Friday night) will be in the past. What happened in '04 or 1996 does not matter to us. We set out to win (Friday's) game. It was difficult, but we did it."

Difficult, maybe, but not unexpected. The Red Sox have, after all, outscored the Angels, 80-30, in the 11-game winning streak.

"This game ain't over until somebody wins three games,'' said Angels manager Mike Scioscia. "We're down. We go into Boston, win a game and the pressure is back on them. I thought we did a good job (Friday). We did a lot of things well.''

The Red Sox, however, did things even better.

"There is a challenge in front of us,'' Scioscia admitted, "and the only way to meet it is going to be pitch-by-pitch, inning-by-inning on Sunday. We have played well in their park all year, and we have to do it now.''

The Angels did win five of six at Fenway Park during the regular season.

But this isn't the regular season.

It's the postseason.

There's a difference. The Angels are living proof. Just check out their near-dead postseason hopes.