If Tim Wakefield is to be banished to the bullpen, a fate for which he has no love, he gave the Red Sox reason to reconsider. Whether they pause at all before making the move is unlikely, but you couldn’t blame them for doing so.
Coming off his shortest start since Sept. 6, 2008, Wakefield finished a solid six innings Tuesday in Oakland with perhaps his most dominant stretch of the season. Hours after he left the game, the Sox dropped a 5-4 heartbreaker in extra innings, but the impression was made.
All-Star Clay Buchholz returns to the rotation Wednesday and Josh Beckett will be back on Friday. As was the case back in April when Daisuke Matsuzaka returned from the disabled list, Wakefield is the likely the odd man out and will convert to a long reliever role out of the pen and provide starting pitching depth.
If there was still an opportunity for Wakefield to remain in the rotation entering Tuesday, the last nail in the coffin may have been pounded in earlyon Tuesday, when he gave up four runs in a matter of moments in the bottom of the third. There was a walk, a hit batter, a stolen base, two doubles and a passed ball with a runner on third.
But before the eulogy could be delivered, Wakefield ensured that the rough inning would not be our last memory of him as a starter in 2010.
The 43-year-old, who is on the verge of becoming the oldest pitcher in franchise history, proceeded to set down the next 11 men in order. The tail end of the streak saw him strike out four out of six.
Boston manager Terry Francona is fond of borrowing the old baseball adage that you can never have too much pitching. He was right about that when he sent Wakefield to the pen earlier in the year. He will be right again if and when another starter goes down.
And when Wakefield gets that call again, he has some reason to believe he belongs.
