ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Aubrey Huff ended last night's game but only began the debate.
Should Trot Nixon have jumped in all-or-nothing pursuit of Huff's 10th-inning liner to right with two outs and Jorge Cantu on first base?
Or should Nixon have taken the conservative route, held up, played the ball off the wall, and returned the ball to the right hand of closer Curt Schilling, with two on, two out, and Alex Gonzalez coming up?
''If it's in front of you, you're conservative," Terry Francona said after the game, speaking for Nixon, who uncharacteristically did not make himself available to reporters. ''Once it's over him, if he pulls up and that ball caroms like it did . . . I'd rather him go after it."
Nixon left his feet, despite appearing to have almost no chance of reeling in the ball, which ricocheted off the wall and past the Sox right fielder.
''In that situation," Schilling said, ''we're playing no doubles. I didn't think that would end the game there. He hit it well. Better than I thought he did."
Huff's run-scoring wall ball sent the Sox to a 4-3, 10-inning loss before an announced 21,550 at Tropicana Field in Boston's first extra-inning game of the season.
In falling to 2-3 on this seven-game trip to Chicago and Tampa Bay, the Sox blew a 3-2 seventh-inning lead. Johnny Damon supplied that advantage, erasing a 2-1 Tampa Bay edge in the top of the seventh with a majestic blast off the upper reaches of the foul pole in right field, his sixth in his last 36 games after leaving the yard just once in his first 57.
But David Wells, solid if unspectacular (6 1/3 innings, 3 earned runs), made one pitch he wanted back -- a slide-step sinker that No. 9 hitter Nick Green knocked into right field in the seventh with a man already aboard -- ending Wells's night and giving Tampa Bay two on with one out.
''That's the one that's sitting with me," Wells said. ''I'm not happy with it."
His personal displeasure lingered because Mike Timlin entered in relief and allowed yet another inherited runner to score (he's now allowed 13 of 20 on the season). Julio Lugo, Timlin's first batter, stayed on an outside fastball and lined it into right center, scoring pinch runner Joey Gathright.
Timlin escaped the inning without further damage -- Carl Crawford and Cantu flied out with runners on first and second -- but the game was tied at 3-3.
Still, the Sox had an excellent opportunity to end this in the ninth and maintain their pursuit of a record that is now safe. The 1936 St. Louis Browns' mark of 126 straight games without an extra-inning affair will not be challenged in 2005.
