"I was struggling throwing strikes, and when I did throw strikes it was pretty good," Wakefield said. "I just didn't make the pitch I needed to in the fifth inning. I had two outs, runner on second. I had the count 1-2, especially with [Kevin] Millar. I couldn't put him away. It's one of those things. Felt like I was throwing good knuckleballs, they just laid off the really, really good ones down in the zone, especially Millar."
Millar worked the lone walk in a stretch of four two-out hits. Instead of escaping with a 2-1 lead, Wakefield walked off the mound with the Sox trailing by four runs.
"We just can't convert that third out," said Sox manager Terry Francona. "Wake left some balls up. When they get hit - we just couldn't get that third out."
And couldn't get a hit at the right moment. Even with an edge-of-the-seat performance from Casey Janssen in which the Sox couldn't make much of their 11 hits and some wicked liners that were caught, Boston was not able to score more than three against a pitcher who had not won in two years, and not won as a starter in three.
"Sometimes you need two-out hits," Francona said. "We actually had some offense. We had a bunch of hits. We had five hits early, we just didn't do much with it."
With the Blue Jays putting the Sox in a hole, another troubling statistic came to light. Since Francona moved David Ortiz from third to sixth in the batting order, the Sox have not scored more than three runs in a game, winning just one of four.
Last night, Ortiz came to bat in the first inning with the bases loaded and two outs. He drove the ball deep to center field, but Vernon Wells tracked it down in front of the wall. Ortiz finished 0 for 4, dropping his average to .189.
"All I can do about myself right now is laugh," Ortiz said. "Because I ain't going to cry. Laugh. Keep on swinging. And wait for the good-luck charm to show up. There's nothing else I can do."
Wakefield was more pragmatic: "He hit it good. He hit it really good. But it's an out, unfortunately."
