Red Sox may be set up for a fall

CLEVELAND -- The Boston Red Sox are in enough of a pickle, pushed to the brink of elimination by the surging Cleveland Indians, who have rolled to three straight American League Championship Series victories before Game 5 tonight in Jacobs Field.

The last thing they need is to be reminded that the pitcher who has left the most indelible mark on this series, the setup man they’ve been unable to solve, was once one of their own, a light-hitting shortstop whom former Boston minor league coordinator Bob Schaefer had the foresight to convert to a pitcher in 1997.

But there he is, Indians right-hander Rafael Betancourt, all 6 feet 2 and 200 pounds of him, 94-mph fastballs ablaze, titanium plate and six screws from a 2001 surgery still in his elbow, as dominant this postseason as Mariano Rivera was in his prime.

Betancourt has faced 17 batters in the ALCS and given up one hit, Dustin Pedroia’s single in the ninth inning of Game 2. Of those 17 batters, four struck out, three hit infield flies and three hit the ball with any kind of authority.

In the last three games, the heart of Boston’s vaunted lineup -- Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew -- went 0 for 12 with four strikeouts against Betancourt, who has given up no runs, no walks and struck out seven in 7 1/3 postseason innings.

“His year was no fluke,” Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan said Wednesday. “He commands his fastball, and it has a lot of life. When you feel like you’re on his fastball he can throw his breaking ball and changeup. And he’s got that mentality where he wants to be in that situation. That’s why he’s had so much success.”

Betancourt, 32, has been as difficult to hit in the ALCS as he was this season, when he was 5-1 with a 1.47 earned-run average in 68 games, striking out 80 and walking nine in 79 1/3 innings.

He entered Game 2 in the seventh inning with the score tied and threw 2 1/3 one-hit innings, striking out Lowell to end a 10-pitch at-bat in the eighth and winning an 11-pitch battle with Youkilis, who lined to center field with the potential winning run on second base to end the ninth inning. The Indians won, 13-6, in 11 innings.

Betancourt retired Youkilis, Ortiz and Ramirez in the eighth inning of Cleveland’s 4-2 win in Game 3 and retired the last six batters of Tuesday night’s 7-3 win in Game 4.

“He has something on his ball, I don’t know what it is, but it stays on the same plane and you foul it off,” Youkilis said. “It’s a tough pitch to get on top of -- that’s why he gets a lot of fly-ball outs. It’s weird. You can’t pinpoint it. You just get frustrated, because it doesn’t have much movement; it’s not like a Rivera cutter.”

Betancourt also has this annoying -- to batters -- habit of remaining in the stretch so long that twice in a game against Detroit in July, he was called for violating baseball’s rule requiring a pitcher to deliver the ball within 12 seconds of the time the batter gets in the box.

“I’m just trying to concentrate on what I’m doing -- every pitch is important, that’s why I take my time,” Betancourt said. “I don’t do it to [tick] everybody off. That’s the way I pitch, and so far it’s working for me.”

Is Betancourt’s delay distracting?

“I think it’s illegal, to be honest,” Youkilis said. “He’s always been pretty slow to the plate.”

The same can’t be said for his fastball, which celebrated its 10th birthday this year.

Like many kids in Venezuela, Betancourt grew up “wanting to be the next Omar Vizquel,” but three seasons into his minor league career with the Red Sox, Betancourt had a .195 average, including a .167 mark at Class-A Michigan in 1996, and no future as a shortstop.

At extended spring training following that season, Schaefer suggested he switch to pitching, and Betancourt’s reaction was another pitching no-no: he balked.

“I did not like it,” Betancourt said. “I didn’t think I could do it. He said it would give me a good chance of getting to the big leagues. I never pitched before. . . . The next day I was throwing bullpens.”

Four months later, Betancourt was pitching for Michigan, and in 1999 he was 6-2 with a 3.62 ERA at double-A Trenton. The Yokohama Bay Stars purchased Betancourt’s contract in 2000, but after an injury-plagued season in Japan and an abbreviated 2001 at Trenton, Betancourt underwent surgery, was released by the Red Sox and sat out all of 2002.

He returned to Venezuela, where he spent the year “working out, running, sitting at home, waiting for my chance,” he said. “Now I’m here.”

The Indians saw Betancourt pitch winter ball in 2003 and signed him to a minor league deal. Betancourt struck out 75 in 45 1/3 innings at double-A Akron -- an average of 15 strikeouts per nine innings -- and after a brief stop at triple-A Buffalo, he was in the big leagues by June 2003.

“I always thank Bob Schaefer for giving me a chance to pitch,” Betancourt said, “because I never even thought about pitching.”

Betancourt’s mound ascent was accompanied by suspicion. He was among the first players to test positive under baseball’s new steroids-testing program and served a 10-game suspension in 2005.

Betancourt claimed he tested positive for a substance he took during the off-season in Venezuela for a sore shoulder, but his appeal was denied.

“I explained to everybody what I did,” Betancourt said. “I don’t think I did anything wrong, but that’s fine for me. Right now, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. I proved to a lot of people that I don’t need that stuff in my body to be good.”

mike.digiovanna@latimes.com