Sensing that this could be his final game, David Ortiz implored the crowd at Fenway Park to make some noise. They delivered. But no matter how loud the crowd got in an emotional final two innings, the Red Sox still went silently into the good playoff night.

The final word belonged to former Red Sox manager Terry Francona and the Cleveland Indians, who ushered the Red Sox out of the playoffs and Ortiz into retirement with a 4-3 victory on Monday and a three-game sweep of this best-of-five American League Division Series. The fans chanted for Ortiz to come out of the dugout one last time. He finally materialized, emotionally doffing his cap and tapping his heart. But the big hit the Sox needed to extend the series never made an appearance, nor did the fearsome offense that led the majors in runs scored in the regular season.

The worst fears about the Red Sox were confirmed in a troika of games where they fell behind and could never get up. These Sox were lovable, embraceable, enjoyable front-runners. They could give pitchers whiplash, score runs in waves and win, dance, repeat when times were so good, so good. But when they weren’t rattling off 11 wins in a row and the runs didn’t come as easily they were at a loss for answers.

That’s why the Red Sox went from regular-season overachievers to playoff underachievers, from division champs to playoff disappointments. No one expected October to end so soon for the Sox. It’s a difficult lesson for exciting young players like Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Xander Bogaerts. They’ll be back here. Ortiz will not.

Playoff baseball is like an X-ray. It shows you what is underneath the surface. It reveals hardball hairline fractures. The Sox got exposed. They were 30-11 in blowout games, which baseball reference.com defines as games decided by five-plus runs. They were 20-24 in one-run games and lost two more in the postseason.

Their lineup, which scored the most runs in baseball during the regular season, couldn’t muster a single inning in the series where they scored more than one run.

The Sox batted a meager .214 in this series. They got zero runs batted in from Betts, Bogaerts, Bradley Jr. and Dustin Pedroia, somewhat disadvantaged by batting lead-off. Those four players batted a combined .181 (8 for 44) with two extra-base hits. Throw in Ortiz hitting .111, and too much of the Boston lineup was idle.

The Sox were 78-15 in the regular season when they scored five or more runs. They couldn’t reach that mark in this series.

“The inability to string some hits together, generate the bigger inning, that wasn’t there, so that puts us in the spot we are today,’’ said manager John Farrell.

But it wasn’t just the bats that didn’t meet October standards.

The Olde Towne Team couldn’t come up with the big hit or a clutch pitching performance. It was stunning for such a talented team, one that could have both the American League MVP and the Cy Young Award winner.

As feared, their starting pitching wasn’t up to the task. The Sox started three pitchers in the series who have not won a start in the post-season, Rick Porcello, David Price, and Clay Buchholz. None of them changed that. None of them made it through the fifth inning.

It was erstwhile starter Drew Pomeranz who surrendered the decisive blow, a two-run homer to former Red Sox Coco Crisp in the sixth that gave Cleveland a 4-1 lead.

Crisp was the guy who after joining the Sox appeared in Sports Illustrated with Ortiz pouring milk over his head. Now, Crisp was pouring cold water on the idea of the Sox sending out Ortiz in storybook fashion.

The Sox, who lost eight of the final nine games they played after their 11-game winning streak, never rediscovered their dominant form. Why?

“It’s tough to say,’’ said Betts. “One game we may not hit and we pitch, then one game we may not pitch and we hit. It’s tough to put it together, plus we played against some good teams, so we have to give them credit too. Late, down the stretch, we didn’t really hit that well for the most part. You got to score to win.’’

Ortiz got a ton of gifts during his going-away tour from surfboards to oil paintings to busted-up bullpen phones. But the Red Sox couldn’t give Big Papi the one parting gift he really wanted, a fourth World Series ring.

“Everyone obviously wanted to go further for David. We just didn’t make it happen,’’ said Bogaerts.

The core of this team will be back. The future is bright. Betts said the team learned a lesson in the postseason about how to handle adversity and approach post-season games.

Still, this is a bad look for the Red Sox. They get swept out of the playoffs by their former manager, one they had a bad breakup with. Meanwhile, former general manager Theo Epstein might be on his way to ending the biblical World Series title drought of the Chicago Cubs.

Francona knows about Ortiz’s post-season exploits all too well.

With the Sox lineup groping for a light switch, Tito wasn’t about to let Ortiz shine bright one more time. Leading 4-2 in the eighth with Betts on first and two outs, the Indians pitched around Big Papi, sending him to first base with a walk.

With Ortiz clapping at first base and exhorting the crowd to make some noise, Hanley Ramirez stepped to the plate. Ortiz kept encouraging the crowd to bring the noise and Hanley to bring a hit. Both obliged.

Ramirez’s RBI single to left brought the Sox within a run and forced Farrell to remove Ortiz, the potential tying run, for pinch-runner Marco Hernandez. But Bogaerts lined out to second base to end the threat.

That game-changing hit never came from Ortiz or anyone on the Sox.

Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at cgasper@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @cgasper.