Joe Torre strode to the podium following his Yankees' second straight heartbreaking, extra-inning loss Monday night looking faded and rolling his eyes.

Before he even got to the microphone, he muttered, "Groundhog Day."

True enough.

Game 5 of the American League Championship Series had just ended, finally, and Torre had to watch as David Ortiz played the hero for the second time in about 20 hours.

Ortiz, who ended a virtually identical game early Monday morning with a homer, did it more quietly Monday night, blooping a 14th-inning, seeing-eye single to center off Esteban Loaiza, the Yankees' fifth pitcher of the game, to give the Boston Red Sox a 5-4 victory and make it a 3-2 series in favor of the Yanks heading back to New York.

But Ortiz wasn't the only hero.

The Red Sox wouldn't have won either game without Sox skipper Terry Francona's astute managerial maneuvers, and they certainly wouldn't have won Game 5 without Tim Wakefield.

Flashing back to Game 4, Francona admitted that he didn't have much choice when it came to strategy.

Down 3-0 in the series after a 19-8 Game 3 drubbing in Fenway Park on Saturday night, Francona pulled out all the stops Sunday.

Setup man Mike Timlin threw 37 pitches in the sixth inning of Game 4, two innings earlier than he'd normally be used.

Closer Keith Foulke threw 50 pitches in 2 2/3 scoreless frames after entering in the seventh, also two innings earlier than he's accustomed to.

Knuckleballer Wakefield, who had absorbed 3 1/3 innings and five runs of abuse in Game 3, warmed up but didn't come in.

"It's almost like a puzzle," Francona said before Game 5. "We'll just see how many pitches, or how much you think they can tolerate, and then we'll try and put it together and win."

In Game 5, he did all of that and more.

With the Yankees leading Game 5, 4-2, in the seventh inning, Timlin entered the game and pitched 1 2/3 innings of scoreless ball, throwing 20 pitches.

Francona then summoned Foulke, who came in with two out in the eighth and got the hottest hitter in the series, Hideki Matsui, to fly out to left.

Then Foulke threw a scoreless ninth, surviving a two-out, runners-on-second-and-third situation by getting Miguel Cairo to pop out to first base.

Francona wasn't done, though.

In the pivotal ninth inning of Sunday's win, Francona used speedy Dave Roberts as a pinch-runner for Kevin Millar when the Sox got the tying run on base. Roberts stole second and eventually scored to tie that game, 4-4.

In Monday's eighth, after Ortiz homered to cut the Yankees' lead to 4-3, Roberts was at it again, pinch-running for Millar, moving to third on a Trot Nixon single, and scoring on a Jason Varitek sacrifice fly. Again, Roberts' run tied it at 4-4.

"It's so intense for me," Roberts said. "I'm just enjoying every minute of it."

And so was Francona, who survived the extra innings with brilliant moves at every turn:

*Coaxing a dominant 10th inning from Game 3 starter Bronson Arroyo.
*Choosing lefty specialist Mike Myers simply for the task of retiring lefty Matsui, which Myers did with a strikeout in the 11th.
*Employing lefty Alan Embree to take on switch-hitters Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada and Ruben Sierra to get out of the 11th, which he did with two strikeouts after a Williams single.

And then came Francona's piece de resistance: handing the ball to Wakefield.

The knuckleballer, pitching to Varitek and not to his usual receiver, Doug Mirabelli, tossed three frames of one-hit, shutout ball, striking out four and earning one huge win.

And even when Varitek's lack of experience dealing with the floater could have hurt the Sox -- three passed balls in the 13th led to runners on first and third -- Wakefield took care of business.

Wakefield struck out Sierra to escape that jam before pitching a 1-2-3 14th to end the game, some five hours and 49 minutes after it had started.

"He was throwing some hard ones, about 70 miles an hour, that made it tough on me," Varitek said. "But he really picked me up."

"I just tried basically to just keep us in the game as long as possible," Wakefield added. "I didn't know how many innings I would be able to go. After (my) second inning, they asked me how I felt and I said, 'I'll give you what I've got.'"

For Francona and the Sox, that was just fine.

"First of all, I was very pleased for our ballclub," Francona said, summing up the effort. "We used, basically, everybody. To get shutout innings out of your bullpen for that length of time, it was an unbelievable performance, with Wakefield right in the middle of it."