All's not Wells in Oakland

''It multiplied and got out of hand," manager Terry Francona said, summarizing Wells's outing. ''Once [Eric] Chavez hits the home run, 7-0, it seems silly to keep [Wells] out there any longer."

Wells took the loss (his fourth in six starts), took the ERA hit (his climbed to 6.75), and took no interest in whether he might have been better served making a rehabilitation start with Pawtucket.

''I'm going to let you guys write what you want," said the lefthander, who turns 42 tomorrow. ''I'm not going to answer any questions like that because obviously you guys think I should have. I know what I'm capable of doing. Because the game looked bad today, you guys are going to decide I needed one."

On top of his base pay of $2.5 million, Wells's contract pays him $200,000 for each start from 11 to 20 and $300,000 for each start from 21 to 30. Asked if he came back when he did to maximize his number of major league starts, given his age and the mileage on his body, Wells said, ''You write what you want. Anything else?"

His 1 1/3 innings represented his briefest outing since June 8, 2001, against the Cubs. It was also the shortest by a Sox starter this season. Wells has two of the three shortest -- yesterday and the 3{dbcomma} innings he went April 25 against Baltimore, when he injured his foot. The other was the 3 2/3 innings Jeremi Gonzalez pitched in his last start, Friday at Seattle. Gonzalez, in fact, surrendered his start yesterday to Wells only to find himself pitching in relief in the second inning.

That was because Wells simply couldn't stay any longer, not with the way things were going.

Mark Kotsay, leading off, bunted the first pitch Wells threw to the right side and reached. Hyper right fielder Eric Byrnes singled to left, as did Jason Kendall, loading the bases. Chavez grounded into a fielder's choice, scoring Kotsay for a 1-0 lead, and Keith Ginter followed with a sacrifice fly for a 2-0 lead.

With two outs in the first inning, and the damage still slight, Wells surrendered a Scott Hatteberg RBI double and an RBI single to Erubiel Durazo, upping Oakland's lead to 4-0.