A Sox killer strikes

“Wow,’’ Boston manager Terry Francona said. “Kind of stand by the statement I made the other day. I thought they should have traded him the other day, and to a National League team. You don’t tip your hat during a game because you want to beat him. But that was pretty good pitching.’’

The Sox scored a run in the first, and had two men on in the third. Then, nothing. Of their final 21 batters, just one reached base with a hit, when David Ortiz singled in the sixth. No runner reached scoring position after the third. Halladay was on. Chances were gone.

In the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings, the Sox led off each with a first-pitch out, by Kevin Youkilis, Jason Varitek, and J.D. Drew, contributing to Halladay’s exceptionally low pitch count. He threw just 105 in a complete game, his fifth career against the Red Sox, and his fourth of the season.

“Typical,’’ Sox left fielder Jason Bay said. “Getting a lot of early swings. We’re a team that a lot of the time works counts and takes pitches. There’s a few [pitchers] that that’s not really conducive for. I think he’s one of them. Because you look at his strike-to-ball ratio. It’s ridiculous. You know he’s throwing strikes. Before the game I saw he had the 100-something punchouts [106] and like 17 walks.

“It’s one of those things where you’re not going to wait him out and work a walk. If you can get something early on, you’ve got a better chance of [putting it into play], then go ahead.’’

And the Sox did. After Drew struck out to open the game, Pedroia singled, and Youkilis doubled. Ortiz hit a sacrifice fly to right, scoring Pe droia and moving Youkilis to third. Then Bay, with the chance to create a bit of separation early, necessary with Halladay on the mound, just missed a pitch. He hit it well, just not well enough, and it settled into Alex Rios’s glove on the warning track in center field.