Wells able to bounce back in the rubber game

Nice. Very nice.

But the best development of the weekend had nothing to do with anyone swinging a bat. That stuff was the drive for show. What David Wells did was putt for the dough.

''He was outstanding," said manager Terry Francona. ''He scuffled, and then came back. He had a great breaking ball. He worked both sides of the plate. He was very efficient." I'll say. Wells was 95-pitch efficient, or just 12 pitches more than it took his starting counterpart to labor through three innings.

You would never, ever have guessed what was to come after Derek Jeter and Gary Sheffield each hit scorching liners over the left-field fence in the first inning, but Wells went from that inauspicious beginning to throw one of the best games the Red Sox have had all year, and that includes his own eight-inning, three-hit scoreless effort against the Orioles April 20.

Wells was the winning pitcher as the Red Sox won the rubber game of this three-game series. It was no exaggeration to say that this was one of the most important starts made by any Red Sox pitcher this season, because there had to be some concern about just what, if anything, the team could expect from the 42-year-old lefthander after watching his last two performances.

Matched against Mike Mussina, who had gone 4-0, 2.06 in the month of May, Wells worked 8 1/3 innings of spellbinding baseball before departing -- quite unhappily, I must say -- with one out in the ninth after a Sheffield single to center. Keith Foulke nailed it down for the veteran lefty, who was handed a 2-0 lead before he took the mound and gave it back by the third batter he faced.

''I wasn't worried," he said. ''It was, 'Oh, here we go again,' but we were still tied. All I had to do was settle down, get my composure back, and go after them."

This had to be one of the ugliest outings of Mussina's distinguished career. After striking out Johnny Damon to start the game, he lost a 10-pitch battle to Renteria when the sizzling Colombian singled to left. Ortiz then hit an altitudinous shot into the third deck to make it 2-0.