Red Sox Find the Loop Hole

Johnny Damon is having an awful American League championship series, “the worst series of my life,” the Boston leadoff batter admitted Monday night, so bad that “most of Boston probably wants to have me hung.”

And what about cleanup batter David Ortiz, who had his second walk-off hit in as many nights Monday, a run-scoring single in the bottom of the 14th inning that lifted the Red Sox to a pulsating 5-4 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 5?

“Hopefully he’ll have six more great games,” Damon said, “and they’ll make a monument of him.”

Move over, Paul Revere. There might be another statue in Boston’s North End, this one of a clutch hitter who has taken the Red Sox on a few memorable midnight rides.

That’s the kind of postseason it has been for Ortiz, whose third walk-off hit of the playoffs, a looping, two-out single to center to cap a 10-pitch at-bat against Yankee reliever Esteban Loaiza, provided a dramatic finish to the gut-wrenching 5-hour 49-minute game, the longest in postseason history.

A Fenway Park crowd of 35,120, which was on its feet from the eighth inning on and seemed as nervous as the players pacing back and forth in both dugouts, saw Damon draw a one-out walk in the 14th, take second on Manny Ramirez’s two-out walk and easily score on Ortiz’s soft single.

That gave the Red Sox their second extra-inning win over the Yankees in as many days and forced the best-of-seven series back to New York for Game 6 tonight, with the Red Sox trailing, three games to two.

No team in baseball history has come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series, and only two other teams, the 1999 New York Mets and the 1998 Atlanta Braves, have forced a Game 6 after losing the first three games.

Now, the Red Sox are two wins away from making history, they have ace Curt Schilling, injured right ankle and all, in line to start against Yankee right-hander Jon Lieber in Yankee Stadium tonight, and momentum is on their side.

“Coming home down, 2-0, and losing Game 3 the way we did [19-8], and being down the last two nights and coming back shows the depth, the character, the heart, the guts of our club,” said Tim Wakefield, the Red Sox knuckleballer who threw three scoreless innings Monday night to gain the win. “It took every ounce of whatever we had left to win tonight’s game and [Sunday night’s] game. I’m proud of every one of those guys in there.”

Each team used seven pitchers Monday night, combining for 471 total pitches, and after Sunday night’s 12-inning affair, both bullpens seem shot -- Yankee closer Mariano Rivera has thrown 62 pitches in the two games, and Boston closer Keith Foulke, who went 1 1/3 scoreless innings Monday, has thrown 72.

Both starting catchers, Jason Varitek of the Red Sox and Jorge Posada of the Yankees, caught all 26 innings, and several players said they were emotionally and physically drained after Monday night’s marathon.

Perhaps Ortiz is fresh because, as a designated hitter, he hasn’t had to play defense for 26 innings the last two nights. “All I do is hit,” said Ortiz, whose solo homer in the eighth Monday sparked a two-run rally that tied the score, 4-4, and whose RBI single started a two-run first off starter Mike Mussina.

After hitting a 10th-inning walk-off homer in the division series-clinching win over the Angels on Oct. 8, Ortiz is batting .478 (11 for 23) with two homers and nine runs batted in against the Yankees, including a two-run walk-off homer in the 12th inning in Game 4 Sunday night.

“He’s decided to put us on his shoulders and carry us,” said Dave Roberts, who pinch-ran in the eighth and scored the tying run on Varitek’s sacrifice fly off Rivera. “... We wouldn’t mind two more days of it.”

Ortiz’s heroics enabled Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez, who was tormented with “Who’s Your Daddy?” chants in Yankee Stadium in Game 2 and threw six so-so innings Monday, giving up four runs and seven hits, to get the last laugh on his nemeses.

“The Yankees,” Martinez said, “really have to think about who’s their Papi?”

That’s the nickname Ortiz, a native of the Dominican Republic, goes by, and as the jubilant crowd left Fenway Monday night, chants of “Who’s Your Papi?” filled the stadium.

But to get to Ortiz, the Red Sox needed eight scoreless relief innings from Mike Timlin, Foulke, Bronson Arroyo, Mike Myers, Alan Embree and Wakefield. They also had to survive three passed balls in the top of the 13th by Varitek, who normally doesn’t catch Wakefield, and another horrendous night for Damon, who failed to advance a runner from second with none out in the seventh, was caught stealing in the ninth, popped up a bunt with two on and none out in the 11th and is two for 24 (.083) in the series.

“He’s had a tough series in every facet of the game,” Roberts said of Damon. “But on this team, no one gets down on anyone. For him to get on base and score the winning run is huge for his confidence. It took 25 guys.”

And another Red Sox comeback. Derek Jeter’s three-run double off Martinez gave the Yankees a 4-2 lead in the sixth, but Ortiz hit a prodigious blast over the Green Monster in left-center off reliever Tom Gordon in the eighth to make it 4-3.

Kevin Millar walked after falling behind, 0-and-2, and was replaced by Roberts, whose stolen base and run brought Boston back in the ninth Sunday.

Trot Nixon lined a single to center, advancing Roberts to third. Yankee Manager Joe Torre summoned Rivera, who gave up Varitek’s sacrifice fly to center, which made it 4-4. Six innings -- and a few hours -- later Ortiz sent the Red Sox to New York, their tank near empty and their engine running on fumes.

“It’s still an uphill battle,” Boston first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz said. “A lot of people wrote us off already, but we’re happy to live and breathe for another day.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

LONG DAY’S NIGHT

Postseason’s longest games by innings:

*--* Inn. Result Game Date 16 New York 7, Houston 6 NLCS Oct. 15, 1986 15 New York 4, Atlanta 3 NLCS Oct. 17, 1999 15 New York 7, Seattle 5 ALDS Oct. 4, 1995 14 Boston 5, New York 4 ALCS Oct. 18, 2004 14 Boston Red Sox 2, Brooklyn 1 World Series Oct. 9, 1916 13 New York 3, San Francisco 2 NLDS Oct. 7, 2000 13 Cleveland 5, Boston 4 ALDS Oct. 3, 1995

*--*