Scott Pollard of the Boston Celtics greets fans as he passes by in a duck boat last night with other members of the championship NBA club before last night’s game in Fenway Park.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

BOSTON — J.D. Drew may be sick of all the questions. He may not want to hear why the fans and the media continually ask him why, all of a sudden, he’s playing like a modern-day baseball monster who is terrorizing opposing pitchers.

No, he says, he’s not trying to replace the injured David Ortiz in the No. 3 spot in the batting order. Drew even dismisses the notion as comical when asked.

The man just wants to play baseball — period.

Drew could have faced more questions last night, when he came up in the bottom of the ninth inning with a runner on second base and Boston trailing St. Louis, 5-3.

But the right-fielder took a called third strike and, despite a run-producing single by Mike Lowell, the next batter, the Red Sox lost to the Cardinals, 5-4, in an interleague game.

“He’s been having so many good swings,” said manager Terry Francona of Drew. “Actually when any one of our guys comes up, we feel like we’re going to win. Until that final out is made … I thought we were going to win until we lost. We usually feel that way and we have confidence in everybody. J.D. has taken so many good swings.”

Drew finished the game 1-for-3 with two walks.

Red Sox starter Tim Wakefield drops to 4-5 despite a solid outing in which he allowed four runs (three earned) on seven hits. The knuckleballer has gone at least seven innings in five consecutive starts.

The Sox couldn’t produce much offense off Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse, who won his sixth straight start. Boston pushed an unearned run across in the second inning thanks in part to a sacrifice fly by Julio Lugo.

St. Louis’ Jason LaRue hit a solo home run off Wakefield in the fifth to tie the game at 1-1 before the Cardinals took a 2-1 advantage in the top of the sixth. That lead didn’t last long as Lugo crushed a solo home run over the Monster seats to tie the game at 2-2.

A tiring Wakefield struggled in the seventh and surrendered a two-run homer to the Cardinals’ Skip Schumaker as St. Louis, which hit three home runs in the game, grabbed a 4-2 lead.

“I made one mistake and it cost us the game,” said Wakefield.

Again, Boston attempted a comeback in the bottom of the inning when it loaded the bases for the second time in the game for Manny Ramirez. Again, the Red Sox couldn’t capitalize as the slugger hit into a 6-4-3 double play, but was able to push one run across.

“I say it so often,” said Francona, “Wake gets us to the seventh inning and you look up and you have a chance to win. Obviously, the two-run homer was big, but I thought he threw the ball very well.”

St. Louis added to it lead in the top of the eighth inning when Yadier Molina hit a solo homer off Sox reliever Hideki Okajima for a 5-3 advantage.

Even though the Red Sox were down two runs in the top of the ninth, Boston reliever David Aardsma was outstanding. The hard-throwing right-hander struck out the side in order, including a 99-mph fastball to strike out Troy Glaus to end the inning.

Drew entered last night’s game against his former team on a torrid pace. His single in the fifth inning means he now has hit safely in 16 of his last 18 games and is hitting well over .400 with nine homers and 21 RBI in this month alone.

jmcdonal@projo.com