Bashers were at their limit

You thought he was going to win this, didn't you? You thought he would be the one to solve Orlando Hernandez in the seventh inning, sending a towering drive into the seats. You thought that fifth-inning shot wouldn't ever land, least of all in Aaron Rowand's glove. You thought, somehow, that David Ortiz would defy mortality again, send the American League Division Series to another day, keep the Red Sox alive.

He had already done it so many times, already forced a World Series championship on a desiccated city, already produced so many victories with that mighty swing.

He couldn't do it again. He tried, teaming with Manny Ramirez to launch three home runs as the Sox faced elimination. But the soaring shots were futile, impotence imbedded in their arcs. They were, truly, what was expected from Ramirez and Ortiz at the beginning of the series, the reason White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen couldn't get their names off his lips, the reason teams had feared the power of the Red Sox all season.

Three solo homers, all the runs the Red Sox scored yesterday in their 5-3 loss to the ALCS-bound White Sox, came off the bats of Ramirez and Ortiz, including back-to-back screamers in the fourth inning. But, it seemed, they had been quiet, too quiet.

Their problem? Yesterday, at least, it was simply that their at-bats kept coming with no one on base.

''They've got to do the damage when they can do the damage, guys on or guys not on," Mike Timlin said. ''It's good to see them both swinging the bat. Those two guys can go and hit a home run and lift everybody else and everybody else starts hitting. We just didn't hit enough as a team. They outpitched us, I guess."Ramirez hit two home runs yesterday, yet never batted with a player on base. Ortiz, though, had his chance. And, it seemed for a brief moment, he had taken advantage. He came up, with two down in the fifth inning, with Johnny Damon and Edgar Renteria aboard. The pitch shot off his bat, bound for the deepest part of the ballpark, sinking far too quickly for any Red Sox fan's taste. And Rowand, back on the warning track, gathered it in.

It wasn't as if White Sox pitchers had completely solved the Red Sox sluggers. Ortiz had four hits in the series, but just a single RBI; Ramirez had three hits, including two home runs last night, the ones that lofted him to second all-time with 20 postseason homers.

But Guillen's words, uttered before the first game of the series, turned out to be prophetic.

''Those two guys are my favorite players," Guillen had said. ''We pitched good against them this year. With Jose [Contreras] pitching, I don't want Ortiz to beat him. I will take my chances with Manny."

He did. Ramirez responded by driving in four of the team's nine runs. Ortiz responded by driving in one. Guillen was right. Ortiz didn't beat them and, in the end, neither did Ramirez.

They are a duo that has become relied on in Boston, a pair of Dominican Bash Brothers that has taken off in the last three years. It's one that, with trade talks likely in the offseason, could be no more by the time pitchers and catchers report to sping training. Ramirez has three years left on his onerous $160 million, eight-year contract.

Ortiz, who didn't enter the clubhouse until nearly two hours after the game, had ominous words for the Red Sox front office: If Ramirez isn't back with the team for the 2006 season, they had better pick up Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols.

Because, without Ramirez, Ortiz simply wouldn't be the same.

''Those guys are pretty amazing," Damon said. ''I wish I could have been on base a little more. When we were on base [in the fifth inning], we thought Ortiz got it. Those guys are so good that if they're not [hitting] back to back, it's going to hurt one or the other. Those guys feed off of each other. Each of those guys want to be better than each other. I've never seen a tandem quite like that."