Blue Jays 0
Red Sox 7

Could 9/12/08 have been the best regular season start of Tim Wakefield’s long and illustrious Red Sox career?  I’m speaking in context, of course; Wakefield has had some near misses on no-hitters and a smattering of complete game shutouts throughout his tenure in Boston.  Those outings would surely have a higher game score than Wakefield’s effort last night.  Tonight, however, Wakefield gave the Red Sox exactly what they needed at an extremely critical time of the season.  And let’s be frank: we weren’t exactly expecting a gem from Wakefield after his previous start: a 1.2 inning abomination in Texas.

How big was Wakefield’s performance last night?  Well, the Red Sox are currently 2.5 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the divisional race, and 5.5 games ahead of the Minnesota Twins in the wildcard race.  There are 17 games left in the regular season.  The Red Sox have a daunting double header scheduled for today against the pesky Toronto Blue Jays, and the scheduled starters are Paul Byrd (averages about 6 innings per start) and Bartolo Colon (first start since June 16th, averages about 6 innings per start).  In other words, the team will likely need 6 innings of relief today, and that is a conservative estimate.  On top of all of this, when the Red Sox finish with Toronto, they leave for Tampa Bay in what appears to be the most critical series of the 2008 season.  Having a fresh bullpen in Tropicana Field would be ideal.

Wakefield’s 8 innings effort, limiting the bullpen usage to 1 inning from Manny Delcarmen, should be one to remember.

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