"If it works, it's a great play. It it doesn't, it's tough to swallow."

That was Mark Teixeira's take on the busted suicide-squeeze play in the top of the ninth inning Monday night that killed the Angels' chance to take the lead.

The game and the series were lost in the bottom of the same inning, when Jed Lowrie singled home Jason Bay with two outs to give the Red Sox a 3-2 victory.

"Tough to swallow" indeed, because the Angels - who had tied the game with a two-out, two-run rally in the eighth - seemed poised to take command of the series. A victory would have given them two wins at Fenway Park (against Boston's two best pitchers, no less) and a hurricane-force wind of momentum at their backs heading into a fifth and deciding Game Five of the ALDS in Anaheim. And victory seemed there for the taking.

A leadoff pinch-hit double by Kendry Morales had gotten the inning started, and pinch-runner Reggie Willits was sacrificed to third by Howie Kendrick. Up stepped Erick Aybar, who had singled home the winning run in the same situation - runner on third and one out - in the 12th inning Sunday night.

Manny Delcarmen was brought in to face Aybar. His third pitch was a 96-mph fastball.

Willits broke from third. Aybar squared and attempted to bunt.

He missed.

Varitek chased Willits back to the bag and tagged him out just before he reached the base. And just like that, everything changed. The air came out of the Angels' balloon. The seeming inevitability of their winning the game evaporated. Ten minutes later, it was over.

The Angels are perhaps the biggest proponent of "small ball" in the American League, and they defiantly insisted - publicly, anyway - that that was the way to go.

"That's our style," said starting pitcher John Lackey. "It got us here, so we'll keep playing that kind of a game."

When it doesn't work, though, it's tough to defend.

And tough to swallow.

amartone@projo.com