Boston center fielder Coco Crisp greets Manny Ramirez after Ramirez’s two-run, eighth inning home run yesterday.

AP / Adrian Wyld

TORONTO — There already have been a couple of times when Boston manager Terry Francona decided that the “save” for his team was happening in the eighth inning.

So, in those key situations with the game hanging in the balance, he has brought in Jonathan Papelbon, reasoning that if a lesser pitcher in the bullpen is brought in and coughs up the lead, then he’s left with a rested and unnecessary Papelbon for the ninth.

Of course, that philosophy isn’t embraced unilaterally in baseball, as it smacks of closer by committee.

But yesterday, the Blue Jays were ahead, 3-1, in the eighth inning with a tiring Roy Halladay on the mound. The Sox had a man at first with one out and David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez coming up, representing the tying run.

Ortiz had five homers this season. Ramirez had none. But regardless of the numbers, both are dangerous in clutch situations.

Clearly, the save was on the line. If the Jays relievers could get past Ortiz and Ramirez and out of the inning with a lead, their chances for nailing down the win increased greatly, no disrespect meant to anyone else in Boston’s batting order.

Toronto’s bullpen is in a state of flux. Top closer B.J. Ryan is on the shelf because of elbow troubles. Maybe if he had been healthy, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons would have called on him to pitch the eighth and finish.

Ryan, though, is gone. Jason Frasor is the newly anointed closer.

But Gibbons called for left-hander Scott Downs to face Ortiz and Ortiz struck out. Then Gibbons called for right-hander Shaun Marcum, not Frasor, also a right-hander, to face Ramirez.

Ramirez got ahead in the count at 2-and-0 and lost Marcum’s next pitch into the center-field seats for his first homer, tying the game at 3-3.

Frasor didn’t cover himself with glory when he finally did get in, surrendering the tie-breaking hit, but the “save” in this game was in the eighth inning, and Frasor, the closer, didn’t get a chance to nail it down.

Varitek’s bat stays cold

It isn’t only Red Sox fans who have noticed Jason Varitek’s declining skills at the plate.

In the sixth inning, Boston had Ortiz at second base and two outs with J.D. Drew coming to the plate. The score was tied, 1-1. And the Jays had their ace, Halladay, on the mound.

But in the on-deck circle, batting sixth in Francona’s mix-and-match lineup, was Varitek, the Sox’ captain and starting catcher. He was 0-for-2 in the game, dropping his average to .200.

So Gibbons had Halladay intentionally walk Drew to get to Varitek with runners now at first and second with two outs.

Halladay missed with his first two pitches, but Varitek was late on a fastball and lofted a high fly down the left-field line that Adam Lind hauled in near the line with Varitek, thinking (hoping?) the ball would go foul into the seats, barely having gotten one-quarter of the way down the first-base line.

The helpful bunt

The Red Sox tried two bunts in the third, and got two hits out of that, even if one of them did go foul.

Cora, leading off the inning, tried to bunt the first pitch he saw and fouled it off.

But that brought third baseman Jason Smith in a step or two on the turf, protecting against the bunt. So when Cora hit a soft looper toward the shortstop hole on the next pitch, Smith wasn’t able to get back in time, the ball falling inside the line that indicates on turf the separation between the infield and the outfield.

Coco Crisp was next. He dropped down a beautifully deadened bunt in front of the plate and beat the throw from catcher Gregg Zaun for a base hit.

Cora faked a bunt on the first pitch he saw in the fifth inning, but had to back away from the inside fastball, taking it for a ball. He wound up grounding out to shortstop in the at-bat.

Crisp, though, opted to bunt again on the first pitch of the eighth inning, and again, he dropped a beauty in front of the plate and reached first safely. Crisp’s two hits, put end to end, probably totaled about 47 feet.

In the ninth, Crisp crushed a ball about 398 feet and made an out to deep center, but at least it was a productive out, a sacrifice fly that gave the Sox a two-run cushion.

Shift change

In the first two games of the series, when the Blue Jays put the shift on Ortiz, they moved the third baseman (Smith on Tuesday night; John McDonald on Wednesday night) over to the second-base side of the second-base bag while pushing the second baseman, Hill, into shallow right in the “hole.”

They left the shortstop, Royce Clayton, at short, albeit shaded closer to the bag at second. The reason they did that was because Clayton isn’t used to playing on the right side of the bag, while Smith and McDonald are more comfortable over there.

Yesterday, with McDonald replacing Clayton at short in the starting lineup, the Jays shifted in a more traditional way, with the shortstop sliding over to the other side of the bag and the third baseman, Smith, playing “shortstop,” near the base.

That alignment resulted in the rare 1-5-3 double play.

With a runner at first and one out, Ortiz hit a one-hopper back to Halladay, who turned and threw to second for the force. Smith took the throw for the out at second and his relay to first easily beat Ortiz for the double play, 1-5-3 in the scorebook.

skrasner@projo.com