Peña on defensive

Wily Mo Peña was puzzled by the question.

More to the point, he seemed perplexed by the phrase, "Turn the page."

"Turn the page in what way?" Peña asked, turning the question on his inquisitor after last night's 6-3 Red Sox loss to the Orioles before a Fenway Park crowd of 37,039.

After he allowed Melvin Mora's scorched liner to sail over his head and bounce into the bullpen for a ground-rule double, then lost Jay Gibbons's low liner in the lights for an error -- back-to-back gaffes that enabled the Orioles to break a 2-2 tie with three runs in the fifth -- Peña was asked if it would be difficult to put the game behind him, turn the page.

"Nah, it's just one game," he said with a shrug. "There's a lot more games to go, so that's all we can do with that."

Peña, who entered the game hitting a torrid .636 (7 for 11, 2 doubles, a home run, 4 RBIs, 3 runs) in his previous three starts, tried to atone at the plate as the replacement for regular right fielder J.D. Drew, who was given the night off. But Peña wound up going 0 for 3.

Nights like this make it tough for the Fenway Faithful to swallow last year's deal that sent Bronson Arroyo to Cincinnati for Peña, an imposing physical specimen who has created a dilemma for manager Terry Francona.

Do the Sox continue to play a glorified designated hitter in the outfield and suffer his mistakes while waiting on the promise of his prodigious power?

Or will they cut their losses by dealing him before the trade deadline?

As Francona noted before the game when asked about Peña's penchant to swing for the fences, "Sometimes Wily is all or nothing. But sometimes the all is pretty good."

Consider the grand slam he belted in a 14-7 romp at Baltimore April 26. Or the career-high four hits he collected in an 8-7 victory over Seattle May 3.

Last night, though, the Sox had to grin and bear the error of Peña's ways.

"I tried to get around the ball and it got lost in the light, so there was nothing I could do with that," Peña said of his blunder on Gibbons's liner, for which he was charged with his third error in 21 games.

As for Mora's ground-rule double, "Nobody could catch that," said Peña. "It was a double. He hit it hard. I was talking with DeMarlo [Hale, the Sox third base coach], and he said there was no chance because the ball was carrying down there, so there was nothing I could do with that."

Asked if he pressed at the plate to atone, Peña said, "No, no, I was just trying to do the best I can there. Tomorrow's another day. A different day. I just have to clear my head up."

In the seventh, Peña settled underneath a fly from Miguel Tejada and made the catch. The Fenway Faithful responded with a mock cheer.

"I'm used to that here," Peña said. "They do that all the time when someone drops the ball here, and when you catch the next one, they're like" -- he paused, clapping his hands for effect. "It doesn't bother me, because they want us to do the best that we can. I don't want to drop it in front of everybody. I just try to do the best I can."

So Peña will attempt to turn the page today.

But when he does, he'll find Drew, who was summoned to pinch hit for him in the seventh, back in right.

(Correction: Because of a reporting error, the final score of the Red Sox-Orioles game played on April 26 was incorrect in a story about Wily Mo Pena in the May 12 Sports section. The Red Sox won the game 5-2.)