Wait is starting to get heavy for Wakefield

Dan Shaughnessy

August 15, 2011|By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Columnist

SEATTLE - This is starting to feel like waiting for the completion of the Neponset Bridge project. Or like waiting for Shaq to rescue the Celtics in the playoffs.

The Wait for Wake has become the Weight.

Tim Wakefield went for victory No. 200 at Safeco Field yesterday and again lost to Charlie Furbush and the moribund Mariners, 5-3. It was the ancient knuckler’s fourth attempt at 200.

This should be a joyful time in the long, proud career of Tim Wakefield. He’s a peaceful man, a champion of charity, and a great teammate. He is 45 years old, still pitching in the big leagues for a pennant contender, and he is on the threshold of a cherished plateau. Since the beginning of the 20th century, only 88 major league pitchers have recorded 200 big league victories. Sandy Koufax didn’t do it. Dennis Eckersley didn’t do it. Dizzy Dean didn’t do it.

Wakefield is going to do it. But the weight of the wait hangs like Logan fog in the Red Sox clubhouse. Wakefield’s quest for 200 is now officially longer and more torturous than the Yaz Watch (going for hit No. 3,000) of 1979.

Yaz went three games and 0 for 13 while Red Sox Nation stirred restlessly. Finally, Yaz hit a dribbler to the left of Yankees second baseman Willie Randolph and Randolph mercifully waved at the ball as it rolled into right field and into history.

Wake was only 13 in the summer of ’79 and he was not a Red Sox fan. After yesterday’s frustrating outing, I told him about the Yaz Watch.

“So is this the Wake Watch now?’’ he asked softly.

Yes, it is. The Wake Watch Tour Across America has already visited Chicago, Boston, Minnesota, and Seattle, and is due to play Kansas City next weekend. Maybe they can sell T-shirts like the Rolling Stones’ “Steel Wheels Tour’’ back in the day.

Wakefield won No. 199 against the Mariners July 24. Five days later in Chicago he gave up only three runs in seven innings, but lost, 3-1. Then he came home and almost got it against Cleveland, but Terry Francona pulled him in the seventh inning with the score tied. The Sox eventually won on Jacoby Ellsbury’s walkoff homer in the ninth.

Wakefield’s next start in Minnesota was most frustrating. He hurled seven respectable innings and left with a 6-5 lead. He was set to have his postgame photo taken with the “200 win’’ baseball, but Alfredo Aceves coughed up the tying run in the eighth and picked up a vulture victory when the Sox scored two in the ninth for an 8-6 win.