Red Sox sent home as White Sox complete sweep

BOSTON (AP) -- David Ortiz was on deck when the last out was made. Curt Schilling waited to pitch in a game that never would be played.

The Boston Red Sox's playoff season ended so quickly that the pitcher who starred in the postseason last year and the slugger who led the majors in RBIs this year didn't get one last chance to rescue them.

The team that ended the wait of generations of passionate fans in 2004 by winning its first World Series championship since 1918 held it for just one year.

The Chicago White Sox beat the Red Sox 5-3 Friday, finishing off a three-game sweep in the AL division series.

"I play to win. I'm not a good loser," Ortiz said when he appeared in the clubhouse 90 minutes after the game. "And I know how good it feels to win."

Had the Red Sox won Friday, Schilling was scheduled to pitch Saturday against Jon Garland with a chance to send the series back to Chicago for a fifth game Sunday.

Instead, last year's ace who struggled after postseason ankle surgery, never got to pitch in the playoffs.

"Ironic, I guess, is the word," said Schilling, who might have pitched earlier in the series if he hadn't played last Sunday when Boston needed him to clinch the wild card. "A lot of it is my fault. If I pitched better it wouldn't have gone down to the last day of the regular season. But this was Wake's game to pitch."

Tim Wakefield worked a decent but insufficient 5 1-3 innings, and Boston failed to score with the bases loaded and none out in the sixth against Orlando Hernandez. Tony Graffanino -- who replaced 2004 postseason star Mark Bellhorn at second base -- hit an infield popup for the second out with the score 4-3.

Graffanino also made a costly miscue in the fifth inning of Game 2 that led to Chicago's 5-4 victory.

More than an hour after the game, in an almost empty clubhouse, he looked into his locker and said out loud, "I can't believe I'm going home today."

One reason is that the Red Sox's pitching was much worse than it was last season.

Big-game pitchers Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe left via free agency. Closer Keith Foulke was ineffective all season before having arthroscopic surgery on both knees. And Schilling wasn't close to the star who went 21-6 last year and excelled in the playoffs despite an ankle that had been stitched up to keep a tendon in place.

The Red Sox couldn't come up with the clutch hits in the playoffs either, like Bill Mueller's RBI single that tied Game 4 of last year's AL championship series in the bottom of the ninth after they lost the first three games to the New York Yankees.

They won 6-4 then won the next three games before sweeping St. Louis in the World Series.

The Red Sox wrapped up the championship when Edgar Renteria grounded out for the Cardinals. Boston signed him in the offseason and his groundout also ended Friday's game with Ortiz standing helplessly nearby, his powerful bat in hand.

Boston became the sixth World Series champion to be swept out of the postseason the following year, and the first since Arizona lost in the opening round to St. Louis in 2002.

None of the excitement that followed last year's championship will be repeated -- the tour of the World Series trophy through all of Massachusetts' 351 cities and towns, numerous books and several highlight DVDs.

"All the magic and all the accolades that we got from last year are, all of a sudden, gone," Johnny Damon said.