He was broken knuckler

Wakefield can't save his mates

Tim Wakefield, 42, last night became the oldest man to start an American League Championship Series game. He is in the autumn of his career, of course, and he may not receive many more opportunities to stand on the mound, flutter knuckleballs toward the plate, and laugh at the facial contortions of batters flummoxed by his pitch.

There were precious few of those moments last night in a performance that lasted far shorter than any of Wakefield's worst nightmares could have portended. He walked from the shower to a pack of cameras and reporters shortly after the Red Sox' 13-4 loss to the Rays but hours after he exited it. He spoke softly and obviously.

"It hurts," Wakefield said.

Wakefield lasted only 2 2/3 innings, lambasted by the Rays' second consecutive assault on the Green Monster. He surrendered five runs and allowed six hits, three of them home runs, two of those in the first four batters. The Rays took slow-pitch softball whacks at Wakefield's letter-high knuckleballs, then circled the bases with a laxity befitting beer leaguers jogging toward the dugout cooler.

Wakefield had not pitched since Sept. 28, the final day of the regular season, but both he and manager Terry Francona brushed off his 15-day layoff. His unique style would make it irrelevant, they believed, even if the last starter to win a postseason game after that extended a layoff - Red Ruffing in 1939 - died in 1986.

Perhaps the layoff did not affect him - Wakefield, Francona, and catcher Kevin Cash all said it did not - but something was amiss. Wakefield threw several knuckleballs that never dropped, instead crossing the plate at chest level.

"The ball just didn't stay down in the zone like they normally do," Cash said.

"The balls he left up got whacked pretty good," Francona said.

Wakefield entered the start with optimism. It would be his chance, as the longest-tenured member of the Red Sox, to rescue a teetering team. "Coming out of his bullpen, he felt pretty strong," Cash said.

Wakefield struck out Akinori Iwamura on knuckleballs that danced like they're supposed to.

And yet he barely survived the first inning - reliever Justin Masterson warmed up five batters into the game. If the inning had reached ninth batter Jason Bartlett, Francona said, Masterson would have entered in the first. Eighth batter Fernando Perez fouled out.

Between Iwamura and Perez, Wakefield endured a train wreck. B.J. Upton walked on four pitches. He finally got a knuckler to drop into the zone facing Carlos Peña - a low-ball hitter. Peña blasted the pitch into the seats atop the Green Monster.

Evan Longoria - who was 6 years old when Wakefield threw his first major league pitch - walked to the plate and continued the demolition. An eye-level knuckler danced toward him, inside. It dropped to perhaps his neck. Longoria stood like a statue until the last possible moment. He unleashed a massive hack, blasting the ball over the Wall.

Wakefield cruised through the second in order, but he could not escape the third. He almost did, though. With two outs, Carl Crawford dribbled a ball between the mound and the first base line. Wakefield stumbled toward it, dived, and smothered the ball. He flipped, chest on the ground, to Mark Kotsay at first base. Crawford beat the throw by two steps.

"In a night that was filled with a lot of things that didn't go right," Francona said, "that was a huge turn in the game for us."

Willy Aybar made it so. He had faced Wakefield once before the game, and he had blasted a knuckleball for a home run in Tropicana Field.

As a child, Aybar practiced by hitting bottle caps with a broomstick. That experience must be like tracking a knuckleball. Aybar waited on the pitch, unspooled his body, and crushed the ball into the night. The Rays led, 5-0, and after Dioner Navarro lashed a single off the left-field wall, Wakefield was done.

His night finished, Wakefield walked to the dugout, surely wondering how many of these opportunities he might have left.

"I'm sure he's extremely frustrated right now," Cash said. "I know he wanted to come out and have a good performance."

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