Boston Red Sox: Tim Wakefield Remains the Master of the Moral Victory

Never mind the combined travel and game day. If you remembered the finer points of Tim Wakefield’s 2011 season game log, you had to caution yourself against any high hopes he would nab his 200th career win against the Minnesota Twins on Monday.

Granted, the past shouldn’t be relied upon too heavily to gauge the immediate future, especially when it comes to an individual hurler facing a non-divisional foe for the second and final time in a season. But Wakefield’s outing began in a toe-curling manner reminiscent of his previous bout with the Twins, who, three months ago at Fenway Park, mooched five runs and seven hits off of him in the first five innings.

At the end of the night, it looked like another conventional evening for Wakefield and his fellow Boston Red Sox. They outslugged the Twins 17-10 in the hits column and 8-6 under the all-important runs heading.

And at the end of the day, that’s what really matters. As simplistic as that may sound, it goes beyond the concept of placing team achievement ahead of individual milestones.

It may be agonizing every time Wakefield takes the mound and engages himself and his team in a high-scoring bout. It may be frustrating for him and his many sympathizers that he has now whiffed on three straight tries at the bicentennial winners’ club.

But the fact is Wakefield has a habit of literally putting the “victory” in “moral victory.” His starts, more often than not, are moral victories for him individually because the games tend to end in tangible victories for the A.L.-leading Red Sox.

Out of 16 occasions this season, the Red Sox have gone 11-5 when their ageless knuckleballer throws their first pitch to the opposition. That makes for a winning percentage of .688, slightly higher than the team’s overall .623 success rate. When Wakefield hasn’t started, the Sox have gone 60-38 for a .612 winning percentage.

Only once have Wakefield and his allies combined to let a potential victory bolt out of realistic lassoing distance. It was his second start and first decision of the year, a 9-2 home loss back on May 6 to these same Twins, who placed four walks, nine hits and six earned runs on Wakefield’s tab.

A little more than two weeks later, Wakefield was once again transferred out of the bullpen and back into the rotation, where he has since remained to no regrettable effect.

Wakefield himself holds credit for six wins and four shortcomings. Translation: When he starts, but is not the pitcher of record, the bullpen has combined to go a sparkling 5-1.

The lone blemish in that department fell on June 1, when Wakefield left behind a slim 4-3 deficit after pitching six innings. The Sox promptly deleted that deficit in the bottom half of the sixth, but Matt Albers took the albatross as the visiting Chicago White Sox claimed a 7-4 victory.

But it’s not as if the bullpen is ever needed to extinguish a raging Wakefield-induced wildfire. Most of Wakefield’s uncredited winning starts have gone uncredited through no fault of his own. He’ll usually leave with a tie or a slim lead at hand.

Leading up to Monday, the only exception was a July 1 visit to Houston, from which he departed with one out in the sixth inning and a 5-1 deficit glowering down at him. His colleagues nonetheless surmounted the odds for an eventual 7-5 win credited to Dan Wheeler.

They did it again on Monday in Minneapolis. And this time, Wakefield stayed on duty after his trusty bat rack filled the entire 5-1 pothole within the top of the sixth. He lasted two more innings and allowed merely one base hit out of seven challengers.

Perhaps a little more than usual, the elusive win was closer to Wakefield’s reach. The Sox loaded the bases in the top of the seventh with a chance to snap the newly-earned 5-5 tie, only to have Dustin Pedroia ground into an inning-ending double-play.

One inning later, they did pull ahead, 6-5. But newly-inserted reliever Alfredo Aceves blinked and allowed an equalizing RBI single, thwarting Wakefield’s hopes for a win.

As usual, though, the Boston bats clicked in the clutch. They didn’t even need to disrupt cleanup man Kevin Youkilis’ night off to permanently wrest the game away.

They don’t need to do much more than they already are, period.