Wakefield and Cash will be a charged-up battery tonight

Kevin Cash will make the first playoff start of his career tonight, and his nerves will pale compared with the first time he crouched behind home plate and saw Tim Wakefield standing on the mound. That sight, through a catcher's mask, can look like something out of a Hitchcock movie.

John Flaherty caught Wakefield for one spring training game. He found Terry Francona jogging on a treadmill the next morning and told him, "I cannot imagine doing this every five days." Then he retired. Josh Bard lasted five games and surrendered 10 passed balls before the Red Sox shipped him to the San Diego Padres.

"I'll put it like this," Cash said. "There's not going to be any more pressure than the first time I caught Tim."

Wakefield, an unused emergency reliever in the ALDS, will make his first start of the postseason tonight in Game 4 of the ALCS, his first work at all in 15 days. Which means Cash will make his first start tonight, too.

When Doug Mirabelli, Wakefield's catcher since 2001, was released in March, Cash was given a job that requires a threshold for embarrassment and frustration. He led the league in passed balls, allowing 14 in only 57 games. Cramming toothpaste back in the tube is less maddening.

"The most important thing is to stay calm," said Cash, who caught Wakefield four times after his callup from Pawtucket in August 2007. "You need to realize you're going to miss a couple. If you get tense, you're going to miss more than you think you should."

Wakefield shut out the Yankees for five innings Sept. 28, and he has not thrown a pitch in a game since then.

He worked with pitching coach John Farrell to stay sharp. He threw two side sessions in the bullpen and threw from flat ground often to stay fresh in the ALDS in case the Red Sox needed him out of the bullpen.

"I don't really have a concern," Wakefield said. "I feel like I'm ready to go."

Wakefield's comfort level will not make his outing any less unpredictable, which his previous five starts prove. The Rangers shelled him and he lasted 1 2/3 innings; he shut out the Blue Jays for eight innings in the rain; he lasted 2 1/3 innings in Tampa Bay; he clinched the wild card against the Indians; he dominated the Yankees.

"There's been times where I've come out of the bullpen thinking I was going to throw a no-hitter and I've lasted two or three innings," Wakefield said. "So I try not to use my pregame warmups as a barometer of how I'm going to pitch."

The good ones, for a long time, always happened against the Rays. Entering this season, Wakefield had a 19-3 record with a 3.12 ERA against Tampa Bay.

The Rays suddenly solved him this season. They beat him in two of three starts, scoring 10 earned runs in 15 1/3 innings.

The discrepancy is obvious. But since Wakefield throws the knuckleball, nobody can explain it.

"When that knuckleball is on, it doesn't matter how often you've seen him," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "I have so much respect for that man and how he competes and the consistency of that pitch."

The longest-tenured member of the Red Sox, Wakefield has had little success in the playoffs.

His postseason statistics are damaged by several mop-up appearances, but his 6.36 ERA is second-worst all-time among pitchers with at least 40 postseason innings.

When Wakefield climbs the mound tonight and Cash hunkers down behind the plate, the knuckleballs, fluttering who knows where, will make that history mean precisely nothing.

"When that thing is righteous and on," Maddon said, "nobody hits it on any given day."

Adam Kilgore can be reached at akilgore@globe.com.