BOSTON — Captain Nemesis, also known as Tim Wakefield, continues to have his way with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The Red Sox veteran knuckleballer improved to 18-2 lifetime against the Devil Rays last night with eight scoreless innings, surrendering just two hits with six strikeouts. Wakefield was so good he left the Devil Ray players shaking their heads after he led the Sox to a 3-0 victory.

The Rays’ Carl Crawford snapped Wakefield’s bid at a possible no-hitter with a single in the top of the seventh inning, and of all the Tampa players, Crawford is the only one to have success against the seasoned vet. He entered the game with a .328 average against Wakefield (22-for-67 lifetime) and went 1-for-4 last night.

While the Tampa players were having dinner in the clubhouse after the loss, Crawford and a few of his teammates were talking about Wakefield’s outing. The Rays’ players were trying to figure out the best way to approach the knuckleball, and no one could come up with a good solution.

“His ball was moving a whole lot tonight, more than normal,” said Crawford. “Usually he’ll have one or two innings where he loses control, but tonight he was in full control of it.”

Tampa Bay first baseman and former Red Sox Carlos Pena, who is 2-for-19 lifetime against Wakefield, probably has as good an approach as anyone.

“You just have to go out there and play sandlot baseball,” he said. “You can’t worry about anything. You just have to see it, try to hit it and hope you hit it right on the bat.”

That’s easier said than done, especially the way Wakefield’s knuckleball was dropping off the table last night.

“The ball was dropping about two or three feet, so we knew it was going to be tough to hit,” said Crawford. “I just tried to hit it. I didn’t try to do anything special. You just try to stay back as long as you can and wait until the last second. I don’t try to take the normal professional swing, because I don’t think that works.”

“It’s amazing what Wakefield does,” said Tampa Bay starter James Shields, who experiments with a knuckler from time to time. “He’s baffled us time and time again, and any given day he can go out and do what he did to us tonight. He did a great job. I’m battling out there and I’m trying to keep our team in the ballgame, and he had an answer every inning. He’s a veteran player, he knows how to pitch and he had his ‘A’ game tonight.”

Some opposing hitters say if the knuckleball is high “let it fly” and if the pitch is low “let it go.” No matter, the Devil Rays had no shot last night.

“There’s no science to hitting the thing,” said Pena. “When you see it last, that’s not going to be where it is [when you swing] unless it’s a bad one. Even if it’s a bad one, it’s still going to move a little bit. You basically just take your chances. You can’t worry about it and you can’t try to figure it out. You just hope it hits your bat.”

The consensus with the Devil Rays is that they have to prepare for Wakefield differently than a normal pitcher.

“The conclusion is pretty much the same,” Pena said. “You can’t tell a hitter to wait for (the knuckler), or try to go to the opposite field because if you wait on it, it might break more. It’s irrelevant to even talk about hitting approaches against a guy like him.”

jmcdonal@projo.com