Red Sox Force Game 5 With Dramatic Win

With the Red Sox four outs from another postseason failure, David Ortiz snapped out of his slump and saved their season.

Hitless in his first 16 at-bats of the series, Ortiz lined a two-run double off Keith Foulke in the eighth inning to give Boston a thrilling 5-4 win over the Oakland Athletics on Sunday and force a decisive fifth game in the best-of-five series.

Manny Ramirez, who was 1-for-12 coming into the game, had two hits and scored the go-ahead run.

“I couldn’t think of a better time for that to happen, because the clock was running out there,” Boston manager Grady Little said. “That was a good time for them to bust loose.”

Oakland has lost eight consecutive times when it was just one win from advancing in the playoffs, the longest streak in major league history. To snap that slump, they’ll have to beat Boston ace Pedro Martinez after the teams fly across the country for Monday’s Game 5.

“We feel like we have the driver’s seat because we have Pedro going tomorrow,” said Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon, who homered and threw out a runner out at third. “We know Pedro’s going to be on.”

Scott Williamson pitched two perfect innings for the win, getting Erubiel Durazo to pop up to third base for the final out.

Foulke, who led the AL with 43 saves during the regular season, took the loss after allowing two runs on three hits in the eighth.

The A’s got disappointing performances from two of their best pitchers. Starter Tim Hudson, pitching on three days’ rest, left after one inning because of a strained muscle in his left side.

Boston, which won Game 3 on Trot Nixon’s 11th-inning homer, trailed 4-3 Sunday when Nomar Garciaparra doubled with one out in the eighth. One out later, Ramirez singled sharply to left field, too hard for Garciaparra to score.

Ortiz worked the count full before lining a double to deep right, too far for Jermaine Dye to get to. Garciaparra and Ramirez came home, putting the Red Sox ahead.

Boston is hoping for a repeat of 1999, when it rallied from a 2-0 deficit to beat Cleveland in the first round. Martinez also pitched Game 5 that year on full rest, coming out of the bullpen to throw six hitless innings.

Barry Zito will be pitching on three days’ rest as the A’s face the possibility of first-round elimination for the fourth consecutive season. Two years ago, Oakland took a 2-0 lead over the New York Yankees before losing three in a row.

If the A’s blow it this year, there will be plenty of blame to go around.

In Game 3, Oakland made a record-tying four errors and had two players thrown out at the plate, About 13 1/2 hours later, the A’s returned to Fenway Park and hurt themselves again on the bases.

With Bill Mueller on first and nobody out in the third, Jason Varitek hit a ground ball up the middle and shortstop Miguel Tejada made a nice play to stop it and flip it to second baseman Mark Ellis. But with Mueller sliding hard into second, Ellis’s throw came up short and got by Scott Hatteberg.

Varitek kicked the ball down the right-field line and catcher Adam Melhuse had to sprint toward the corner to get it. Varitek ran to third – and thought about going home until Eric Chavez realized the plate was uncovered and ran down the line.

Damon followed with a homer into the Boston bullpen to make it 2-1.

Jose Guillen singled to center leading off the fourth, but Damon threw him out trying to take third on Melhuse’s single.

After Hudson got hurt, Steve Sparks pitched four innings of two-hit ball, keeping the A’s in the game long enough for Melhuse to tie it with a triple in the sixth inning. Dye followed with a home run that made it 4-2 and brought the A’s out of the dugout for a tentative celebration.

Todd Walker homered in the sixth, his third of the series, to make it 4-3.

Notes:@ Boston was outhit 11-7. … Pitchers going on three days’ rest in the playoffs are 5-14 since 1998. … A’s C Ramon Hernandez, who won Game 1 with his 12th-inning bunt, was a late scratch from the lineup because of a lower back strain. … Melhuse and Sparks made their postseason debuts. … John Burkett allowed four runs and nine hits in 5 1-3 innings.