DETROIT — Of all the players on the Red Sox roster who watched David Ortiz strike out in his last three at-bats Tuesday night, perhaps none empathized more than Mike Lowell. Lowell was left for dead himself in 2005, suffering through a miserable year with the Florida Marlins.

He tried everything to turn himself around.

Just like Ortiz this year, Lowell was dropped in the Florida lineup in an effort to take the pressure off.

"In the beginning, I was hitting fifth, and I was hitting seventh later in the year," Lowell said.

Did it help?

"Obviously not," he said. "No, it's a matter of how you feel [when] you're seeing the ball. If you feel you can see the ball, you have a much better chance to start hitting, whether they put you in the cleanup spot or whether you hit ninth."

As of June 3, Ortiz was batting only .186 with one home run and 18 RBI. Lowell knows exactly what it's like to sit at the around .200 in early June.

On June 3, 2005, Lowell was doing a tad better than his current teammate: he was mired at .206, he had two home runs to Ortiz' one, and 20 RBI.

Pundits said the then-31-year-old Lowell was done. He couldn't help but hear them.

Lowell tried everything to get himself going, even listening to the bizarre suggestions of outsiders — such as advice to chew gum when he went to the plate, something he hadn't done since elementary school and had always hated.

"People asked me everything. You should check your eyes, you should use contact lenses, you should chew gum. I got the chew-gum one," Lowell said.

Now, did that work?

"No. It sucked. I popped out the first time, I threw the gum out. Because [when] I was eight years old, I struck out with gum in my mouth. I threw the gum out. I've never gone to the plate with gum in my mouth, ever. Except one stupid at-bat. Thinking that not all of the swings in the cage will get me out of that [slump] — it's the gum."

Ortiz has received all kinds of advice as well. Some of it he's trying to use. There's no question he's been out taking extra hitting, doing extra cage work, but still nothing.

That, he said, is what frustrates him, "Not seeing the good result. You don't see the result, when you work work work, and you don't see the result, you get a little bit frustrated about it, but not too much you can do about it, but come the next day to work, and make it happen," Ortiz said.

Ortiz is still making good contact, especially early in the game, manager Terry Francona said. In the third inning Wednesday, Ortiz hit yet another ball deep to left center, and it was again corralled at the warning track. Deep balls early and strikeouts late have become the routine for Ortiz.

"His more productive at-bats have been earlier in the game. And that's a little bit hard to figure out. Because normally with hitters, when you have a good at-bat, that's when you can start stringing together good games," Francona said.

Lowell counseled that Ortiz needed to keep all the nattering nabobs at arms length, and not listen to the persistent criticism, and Ortiz said he has been trying his best to do that.

"Sometimes, it gets in your head, and it carries. But this is my 12th year in the league, and I know how to handle it a little bit. You've just got to keep your earmuffs on," Ortiz said, laughing, mimicking the motion of putting muffs on his ears.

Lowell does remember the moment he turned the corner. It was in September, with the season already lost. He finally stopped pressing, because he knew he couldn't salvage the year.

"I think in September, I got to the point where if I hit 10 home runs in a month, I wasn't going to be happy with the season. So I almost got to that point where you say the hell with it, might as well just do what I can — and I actually think I hit over .300 the last 15 games," Lowell said.

Lowell finished at .236 with eight home runs and 58 RBI in a full season's at-bats. He was a throw-in on the Josh Beckett deal, which brought him to Boston in exchange for Hanley Ramirez. And here, under more scrutiny than ever, he turned it around for another 20-home run, .284 season, following it up by hitting .321 in 2007 and winning the World Series MVP.

dbarbari@projo.com