Boston’s reign as baseball’s champion ends quickly

The Boston Red Sox and their Fenway faithful waited 86 years to hoist the World Series trophy.

They held it for only one.

There will be no repeat in New England. The Red Sox are out, the first team eliminated from the playoffs this October.

When Edgar Renteria grounded out to end Chicago’s 5-3 win Friday that gave the White Sox a sweep, Boston’s championship banner was still flying stiffly from the center-field flagpole at Fenway Park – a reminder of the joy of last season.

“All the magic and all the accolades that we got from last year are, all of a sudden, gone,” Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon said.

Last year, Renteria grounded out for the St. Louis Cardinals, finishing off Boston’s sweep at Busch Stadium.

This year, slugger David Ortiz was on deck when the final out was made.

“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.”

The Red Sox went quietly this time, chased in three games.

There was no Curt Schilling with the bloody sock and the stitched-up ankle to bail them out – in fact, Schilling didn’t even throw a pitch this postseason, as he was scheduled to start Game 4.

“Ironic, I guess, is the word,” said Schilling, who might have pitched earlier in the series if he hadn’t 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 51/3 innings, and Boston failed to score with the bases loaded and none out in the sixth against Orlando Hernandez. So there’ll be no trophy tour of all of Massachusetts’ 351 cities and towns. No grandsons putting their arms around grandfathers who hadn’t been born the last time the Red Sox won the World Series in 1918 before 2004.

The White Sox “pitched better than us, they hit better than us, they ran the bases better,” Boston manager Terry Francona said.

“They outplayed us, and that’s why they won.”

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.

Blame it on a pitching staff that lost big-game starters Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe to free agency and closer Keith Foulke to arthroscopic surgery on both knees that made him ineffective all season.

The Red Sox had the 11th-best ERA in the American League.

Around the majors

Designated hitter Matthew LeCroy was among three players taken off Minnesota’s 40-man roster. Also outrighted to Triple-A Rochester were outfielder Jason Tyner and third baseman Glenn Williams. Also, Minnesota general manager Terry Ryan declined the $8.5 million option on the contract of right-hander Joe Mays and confirmed that third-base coach Al Newman took a job with the Arizona Diamondbacks as a scout. … Colorado outfielder Dustan Mohr opted for free agency after refusing an assignment to Triple-A Colorado Springs.