TORONTO --
A disappointing weekend in SkyDome could not have come to a more numbing conclusion for the Boston Red Sox.
Toronto Blue Jays rookie Eric Hinske, leading off the bottom of the ninth in a tie game, drilled a home run into the second deck on the first pitch by All-Star reliever Ugueth Urbina.
It was a resounding thud as the ball landed in the seats, leaving the disconsolate Red Sox trudging off the artificial turf while the Blue Jays waited at home plate for Hinske to perform a group dance in celebration of their 6-5 victory.
Hinske's homer, on Urbina's only pitch of the game, was his second of the game as Toronto trumped a pair of Boston comebacks in making it three in a row after losing the first game of this series.
"It's not deflating at all," insisted Trot Nixon, whose two-run homer in the top of the ninth off Toronto closer Kelvim Escobar snapped his 0-for-14 drought in the series and pulled the Red Sox even at 5-5 in dramatic fashion.
"Whether anyone will believe it or not, those guys (Esteban Loaiza, Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay) threw the ball well against us," said Nixon. "Everyone wants us to score 15 runs a game, but that's not going to happen. Everyone's going on the field giving 100 percent. That's just the way the game goes."
Well, at least the New York Yankees felt the same sting yesterday, with their All-Star closer, Mariano Rivera, blowing a three-run ninth-inning lead in a 10-7 loss to Cleveland that enabled the Red Sox to stay only three games out of first place in the American League East.
But the Red Sox are more focused on what they're doing, or not doing.
"This is a tough pill to take, but it happened," said manager Grady Little, whose team had won 11 in a row against the Blue Jays until losing Friday night. "We're playing with our same effort, but we're just missing those one or two key hits to get you really going."
Starting pitcher Pedro Martinez had a tough time getting going, and didn't figure in the decision after allowing three runs, one earned, in six innings. But he didn't think it was time to panic, either.
"Every loss is tough," said Martinez. "But we can't get down about it. We can't mope because we lost the game. We just have to go to Detroit and start a winning streak there."
While clutch hitting comes and goes for every team at some point during the long season, one of the concerns that yesterday's game underscored was how thin the Red Sox' bullpen is, at least in Little's estimation.
Little deems it so necessary to have Tim Wakefield in the bullpen that instead of giving the versatile knuckleballer a spot start tonight in Detroit, he's having Rolando Arrojo cut his rehabilitation stint short so he can test his shoulder and start for Boston on a limited pitch count tonight.
So Wakefield was told 15 minutes before yesterday's game that he was back in the bullpen. And the not-so-subtle message to relievers Rich Garces, Chris Haney, Willie Banks and Wayne Gomes is that the manager considers his bullpen to consist of Wakefield, Alan Embree and Urbina in close games.
The other four arms? Only in blowouts or cross-your-fingers set-up roles.
Not that Little was publicly putting down his other relievers yesterday. Instead, he praised Wakefield even after he gave up a homer to Hinske that snapped a 3-3 tie in the seventh and a two-out, 0-and-2 double to light-hitting Joe Lawrence in the eighth that gave the Jays a 5-3 advantage.
"Tim Wakefield has a lot of value for us in the bullpen," said Little. "That's why we want to keep him in there any way we can."
Wakefield, meanwhile, was succinct in assessing his performance.
"I stunk," said Wakefield, who has been scored upon in each of his last five relief appearances, with a 7.84 earned-run average (9 earned runs in 101/3 innings) over that stretch.
The fact that he was told of his change in duties so soon before the game didn't faze him, either, he said.
"I don't make excuses," said Wakefield.
He just made some bad pitches -- a couple of fat, flat knucklers that the Jays found to their liking. But when Nixon's homer knotted the game, Little called for Urbina to get ready. The Sox went out quickly after that, so Little had Wakefield go out to the mound as if to start the ninth, throwing his warmup pitches while Urbina threw a bit more in the bullpen.
And when the inning was ready to begin, Little went out and replaced Wakefield with Urbina. Little said Urbina, who last threw in the All-Star Game, a one-inning stint last Tuesday in Milwaukee, was ready.
"He said he was ready even before Wakefield went out there, but we gave him more time to get loose in the 'pen," said Little.
It didn't take Urbina long to settle this game, though. One fastball to Hinske.
"It was down and it was in, right in his sweet spot," said catcher Jason Varitek, whose ninth-inning single had preceded Nixon's blast.
And the Sox left the country on a sour note.
