THEY’RE TWO OF A KIND

BOSTON -- The No. 3 batter is a masher with a catchy nickname, an imposing physical specimen who has averaged 32 home runs and 108 runs batted in the last four seasons, who walks almost as often as he strikes out, a rarity for a power hitter, and who delivered a walk-off hit in last week’s division series.

The cleanup batter hit .301 with 25 homers and 114 RBIs this season, he has averaged 99 RBIs for four seasons, he delivered several clutch hits in the division series, and he also has a discerning eye, having averaged 64 walks and 75 strikeouts a year since 2004.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled feature on David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez to bring you. . . .

Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez of the Cleveland Indians.

They’re not as accomplished as Boston’s slugging duo, nor do they receive the same accolades, but if Ortiz and Ramirez are baseball’s best one-two punch, Hafner and Martinez might be the best 1A-2A punch, a pair that could give the Red Sox fits in the American League Championship Series, which begins tonight in Fenway Park.

Game 1 will showcase the league’s top two pitchers, 20-game winner Josh Beckett of the Red Sox versus 19-game winner C.C. Sabathia of the Indians, who are expected to finish one-two -- flip a coin to determine the order -- in the AL Cy Young Award voting.

Ortiz and Ramirez will get equal billing after adding to their big-game resumes by manhandling the Angels in Boston’s three-game division series sweep.

But don’t lose Hafner and Martinez on the marquee.

“We don’t play in a big market, and we’re not going to be the lead-in to SportsCenter, so, yeah, they do get overshadowed a bit,” Indians pitcher Paul Byrd said before a rain-abbreviated workout Thursday.

“When you think of the best catcher in the AL, everyone talks about Ivan Rodriguez, and when they talk about designated hitters, it’s Big Papi [Ortiz]. In the rest of the country, our guys are overlooked, but not in our minds or our town.”

Indeed, in Cleveland, the 6-foot-3, 240-pound Hafner, a left-handed-hitting designated hitter/first baseman, has a candy bar named after him, the Pronk Bar. And the front of the T-shirt Byrd wore Thursday said, “Got Pronk?” The back said, “We do!”

As a minor leaguer with Texas, when Hafner combined raw power with unrefined skills, former Rangers first baseman Lee Stevens nicknamed Hafner “Pronk” -- part project, part donkey.

The name stuck after Cleveland acquired Hafner in December 2002 for pitcher Ryan Drese and catcher Einar Diaz, a steal for the Indians, who took advantage of the Rangers’ perennial need for pitching by plucking Hafner from a system where his path to first base was blocked by Mark Teixeira and Adrian Gonzalez.

The Rangers thought Hafner would be an opposite-field doubles hitter, but Hafner, now 30, began pulling the ball with authority in Cleveland and by 2004 established himself as a legitimate power threat.

Meanwhile, Martinez, a home-grown product signed out of Venezuela in 1996, gained a foothold in the big leagues in 2004, and the 28-year-old switch-hitting catcher/first baseman had a career year in 2007, giving the Indians their strongest one-two punch since Ramirez and Jim Thome in the late 1990s.

“They’re two extremely talented hitters, two very dangerous hitters,” Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell said. “Martinez has such a rare combination of bat control and power, but in both cases, you can’t attack them the same way in each at-bat. They make good adjustments from at-bat to at-bat. We have to have the ability to mix our patterns and attack them.”

While Ortiz and Ramirez were demolishing the Angels, a quote heard often in the Angels clubhouse was: “You pick your poison.”

The Angels picked Ramirez, walking Ortiz six times, twice intentionally. Not only did Ramirez burn them, hitting .375 with two homers, including his monster walk-off, three-run shot to win Game 2, but Ortiz batted .714 with two homers and three RBIs too.

The Yankees faced similar choices with Hafner and Martinez. With first base open and the Indians leading, 4-1, in the fourth inning of decisive Game 4 Monday night, New York walked Hafner intentionally to load the bases for Martinez.

Mike Mussina, looking for an inning-ending double play, tried to get Martinez to roll over on a two-strike knuckle curve on the outside corner, but Martinez stroked an opposite-field, two-run single to left for a 6-1 lead.

Martinez also hit a two-run homer in the fifth inning of Game 1, turning a 4-3 lead into a 6-3 edge, and Hafner hit a walk-off, bases-loaded single in the bottom of the 10th inning to win Game 2.

“They don’t have a lot of holes, they don’t swing at bad pitches, they don’t give anything away,” said Byrd, the former Angels pitcher who will start Game 4 for the Indians. “They’re not selfish, either.”

Are they as good as Ortiz and Ramirez?

Not quite -- but they’re still young and heading in the right direction, and if they keep slugging against the Red Sox, the Indians will have a chance to win their first World Series championship since 1948.

“Those guys have a lot of playoff experience, they’re probably the best one-two punch in all of baseball, they’ve been doing it for a while, and they’ve done it in the postseason,” Hafner said of Ortiz and Ramirez.

“I like playing with Victor, he’s had a great season. We feel good about our middle of the order too, but David and Manny have been doing it for a long time.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com