Ortiz Has the Angels’ Number

Moments before Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz flung his helmet high over his shoulders and lunged into a massive, bouncing ball of humanity at home plate Tuesday night came the flip side of the Red Sox slugger’s walk-off home run that beat the Angels, 3-2, in Fenway Park.

Ortiz had barely completed the follow-through on his mighty swing when Angel catcher Jose Molina stood up and headed toward the third base dugout, not even bothering to glance at the ball.

And reliever Scot Shields, who gave up the home run on a fat full-count pitch with one out in the ninth, had almost reached the third base line when the ball cleared the wall, giving Ortiz his sixth walk-off homer with the Red Sox, two of them in the playoffs, one that ended the Angels’ 2004 season.

That’s how little doubt there was that Ortiz’s shot -- which sailed far over the 380-foot mark in right field -- would end the game, getting the Angels’ important nine-game swing through Boston, Chicago and Seattle off to a crushing start.

“It was a fastball that caught too much of the plate,” said Shields, who tied an Angel record with his 11th loss in relief, a mark set by Mark Clear in 1980. “I left it up and over the middle of the plate, and he hit the ball real far.”

Had the Angels been able to get a runner home from third with one out in the top of the ninth, Ortiz’s 38th homer of the season would have tied the score, not won the game.

But with the Red Sox infield in, deposed center fielder Steve Finley, pinch-hitting for Robb Quinlan, hit a routine grounder to second, and pinch-runner Zach Sorensen, going on contact, was tagged out in a run-down between third and home.

Adam Kennedy, who ended an 0-for-21 skid with a seventh-inning double and scored the tying run on Chone Figgins’ two-out single against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, struck out to end the inning.

Right-handed hitting Juan Rivera had three hits in seven at-bats against Wakefield, and the left-handed Finley, the Angels’ most disappointing player this season, was hitless in three at-bats against Wakefield. But Scioscia went with Finley, who started one game in the previous week and has a .215 average.

“I felt good with Finley driving the ball, getting the ball to the outfield,” Scioscia said. “Rivera was an option we considered. But I thought Finley swung the bat well his last five or six at-bats.”

That wasn’t the only move that left Scioscia open to second-guessing. Kelvim Escobar, pitching for the first time since June 8, was outstanding in his return from elbow surgery after replacing Brendan Donnelly with one out and runners on second and third in the seventh.

Escobar got cleanup batter Manny Ramirez to bounce to Quinlan at third, who threw Johnny Damon out at the plate, and after walking Trot Nixon to load the bases, Escobar struck out Bill Mueller on three pitches to preserve a 2-2 tie.

Escobar added a scoreless eighth, his pitch count reaching 27, but instead of leaving Escobar in for the ninth, Scioscia turned to Shields, the struggling setup man who is 2-5 with a 6.13 earned-run average in his last 14 outings.

The reason? Escobar may be needed to replace Bartolo Colon (back spasms) in the rotation Saturday, so Scioscia didn’t want to extend Escobar on Tuesday night.

“Bart’s situation was considered,” Scioscia said. “Kelvim was close to 30 pitches. That was enough.”

Shields struck out Edgar Renteria to open the ninth, and up stepped Ortiz, whose walk-off home run in the 10th inning against Jarrod Washburn last October gave the Red Sox a division series-clinching victory.

On deck was Ramirez, who has gone 14 games -- and 53 at-bats -- without a home run and has two runs batted in during that span, one coming on a bases-loaded walk by Angel starter John Lackey in the fifth inning Tuesday night. But Shields went right at Ortiz, working the count full.

On Aug. 20, Shields struck out Ortiz with a 77-mph curve with two on to end the eighth inning of a 4-2 win over the Red Sox in Anaheim. But this time the right-hander went with a fastball that Ortiz blasted.

“You face these guys a bunch, and you’ve got to mix it up,” Shields said. “I’ve gotten him out with fastballs before, and I had a live fastball tonight. He got me -- David is a great hitter who showed up big [Tuesday night] -- but hopefully I can get back out there [tonight] and face their three-four-five hitters again.”