Little luck? Manager may need it quickly

By Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff, 10/3/2003

OAKLAND, Calif. -- It wasn't so much the night before, or how it turned into a morning of horror back in Red Sox Nation. Not in Grady Little's mind. His Red Sox suffered a 5-1 loss here yesterday, inching one giant step closer to postseason elimination, but the skipper figured the defeat couldn't be traced to the lingering effects of the previous night's 5-4 loss in Game 1.

"I saw a lefthander on the mound who created that hangover today," said Little, referring to A's ace Barry Zito. "He settled in and did a heck of a job out there."

Wherever his future leads -- and it could be to the unemployment line as early as this weekend -- the 53-year-old Little won't ever be accused of deviating from his steady course of hardball optimism. At 11:45 the previous night, a surprise bunt single in the 12th inning smacked him with a loss. By 3:43 here yesterday afternoon, roughly 16 hours later, his Cowboy Downs were packing up for the flight back to Boston, smarting from the sting of an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-five American League Division Series.

"We've come out here to Oakland and we've lost two," said Little, who'll have Derek Lowe, his Game 1 late-inning reliever, on the mound to start Game 3 tomorrow night in the Fens. "Now we have no choice but to come back -- we've got to win now."

As two-game stands go, the series here was a right cross and follow-up left uppercut to Little's jaw. Potentially a deadly combination. The kindly manager with the southern drawl, loved throughout his clubhouse, does not have the assurance of working again for the Red Sox past Game 3.

If Little's leaguers are dumped in straight sets, he could be dumped within three minutes after the game tomorrow night. The Sox hold an option on his services for the next two years, a pair of one-year deals, but it doesn't take much of a leap in cognitive thinking to figure the option drops dead if his Sox do, too.

"That's not a factor right now," said Little, asked how the uncertainty of his future plays on his mind in these difficult times. "We talked at spring training and said we would wait until the end of this year to talk about it again -- and that's what we'll do."

There will be little to talk about if Little can't find a way to shake the heart of his batting order from its lethargy. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, his 4-5 hitters, remained in a full offensive funk again in Game 2. Ramirez (1 for 8, three walks) also looked futile in left field yesterday, running back in somewhat of a quandry on Eric Byrnes's second-inning fly. The ball ultimately flew over Ramirez's extended glove for a double, all part of a five-run, two-hit ining that put away the win for the A's.

"I don't want to talk about that right now," Ramirez snapped to a reporter in the Sox clubhouse after the loss. Keeping to his routine -- broken only on nights when the Sox clinch wild-card berths -- the main man in the Boston offense also chose not to talk about anything else.

Can Little field for Ramirez? Can he hit for him? No and No. Can he talk for him? He tries sometimes, in his tolerant, gentle and understanding way. But when it comes time to draw a line under his 2003 managerial year, Little may wish, at least for this series, that he at least had been able to get Ramirez's bat to talk.

Ortiz, 0 for 9 the last two days here, kept up an encouraging smile despite the discouraging numbers. Unlike Little, the designated hitter sounded as if Game 1 clearly had impinged on his Game 2.

"I had nightmares all last night," said Ortiz, lamenting the loss that was delivered via Ramon Hernandez's 12th-inning bunt. "I didn't get any sleep, maybe only one hour at most. My wife was great, reminding me to stay positive, but . . . I knew we had that game and then we lost it. It just shows you how hard it is to win."

Little, said Ortiz, keeps reminding everyone up and down the bench to stay loose, stay positive. He reminds them that they've been down countless times all year, but rallied back time and again to shake cobwebs and critics.

"It's not over yet," said Ortiz, asked how he responds to his manager's coaxings. "We've got to keep at 'em."

Across the room, Todd Walker lamented his own lack of defense at a critical point in the five-run second inning. Lunging to his left, he made a nice play to cut down Eric Chavez's hard roller, but then tossed the ball a mile wide and high of first baseman Kevin Millar. The two-base error enabled Byrnes and Mark Ellis to come across the plate, Oakland's lead built to 5-0.

"I tried to make more out of it than I probably should have," said Walker. "These types of games, you try to do everthing you can. I made a mistake today and it kills me that I let the team down."

Little, considered a player's manager for his even-handedness and mild manner, could be down to his final 27 outs.

He can't hit for Ramirez and Ortiz.

He can't field for Walker.

As much as he might want to, he can't snatch the ball from Byung Hyun Kim's glove and heave his best cross-seam fastball to the plate.

Strategically, there were a number of instances in Game 1 when he could be duly second-guessed from Oakland here on the Bay to Oak Bluffs back on the Vineyard.

All of that, and more, will be the stuff that keeps Red Sox Nation hugging the hot stove all winter long -- a winter that could begin any hour now for Little.