Over their heads

"We're not hitting. That's it," Ortiz said before adding his explanation for the offensive explosion in Chicago over the weekend. "We were facing the worst pitching in the league, I guess."

That's why, even as the casualties were counted - manager Terry Francona and Chamberlain ejected for separate incidents - the lasting effects of this game surged beyond the day's antics. Though it is quite possible that a Yankees batter could see a pitch, say, high and tight in the teams' final series of the season Sept. 14-16, the Red Sox acknowledge they need to improve on this offensive display.

And that's all the more crucial without the services of Manny Ramírez and his strained left oblique. As the enigmatic Ramírez offered only that he was feeling "all right. No pain, no gain," the explanations were less cryptic and more critical from his teammates.

"Plain and simple, we didn't swing the bats," Jason Varitek said.

Or didn't swing them well. By going hitless over the first six innings yesterday, the Red Sox suffered through at least five innings of no-hit ball in two straight games, the only time in 40 years that has happened, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Yet, amid the dominance of Chien-Ming Wang and the third game in this series in which the Red Sox scored three or fewer runs, there was a positive development: Curt Schilling controlling a team that clearly knows what it's doing offensively, something that could have playoff implications.

Despite a fastball that didn't reach 90 miles per hour until Schilling faced Jorge Posada in the fourth, the pitcher allowed just two solo home runs, both to Robinson Cano, in seven innings. The first came on a first-pitch fastball that ended up over the middle of the plate before being deposited over the center-field fence. The second came on a hanging splitter that ended up not far from the first. Three more runs, all scored in the eighth, were charged to Hideki Okajima.