Last night, Loretta walked to the plate in the sixth, looked at Mora (''almost on the grass . . . that was the impetus"), then shot a glance to the bullpen (''There was no one warming up.") With a righthanded reliever, Todd Williams, on the mound, Loretta liked Ortiz's chances better than his own. But he also knew that if he wanted to bunt, ''You only have one pitch to do it. Once you show it, it's over."
But he got the bunt down -- up, actually. He popped it up more than he wanted but it landed shy of Mora with some wicked backspin, checking up as if he'd hit a sand wedge. He reached safely. (''I was shocked," Willliams said of the bunt. ''It definitely caught us off guard.")
That brought up Ortiz, who worked a full count (sound familiar?) against the reliever. This time, he didn't leave the yard. But he did hit one hard -- to right field -- and emptied the loaded bases for the deciding runs in a 6-3 win before an appreciative 36,515 at Fenway Park.
''David up with nowhere to put him and nobody up in the pen -- I'll take that situation any time," Loretta said. But for Ortiz, it was no easy at-bat. Williams began him with a pitch that home plate umpire Wally Bell deemed a strike. Bell had featured a generous strike zone all night, giving several pitches low and off the plate to both Curt Schilling and Rodrigo Lopez. Ortiz, who is having an extremely difficult time this season dealing with inconsistencies in calls, stepped out of the batter's box and took a deep breath. He also extended a hand, to signal to Bell what he thought of the pitch.
''I told him, 'That was low,' " Ortiz said.
Ortiz, entering that at-bat, was 0 for 11 since homering off the Yankees Monday night.
''They figured out I was strong," he said of opposing pitchers. Ever since, he said, all the pitches he'd seen had been ''low and away."
And that's where Williams was pitching him. Ortiz had to protect the plate on a low-and-away offering. He fouled it off to the left, to go to 0 and 2.
Williams then threw three consecutive pitches low and off the plate, none close.
