Boston’s Manny Ramirez singles against the Tigers during the third inning last night. He added a home run in the seventh.

AP / Paul Sancya

DETROIT — He’s old.

Tim Wakefield will readily admit to being 41 years old. He is aware that few pitchers are productive at that age in the big leagues, even knuckleball pitchers.

But that doesn’t mean the Boston Red Sox right-hander can’t still pitch in the big leagues, as the knuckleballer demonstrated again last night, blanking the supposedly potent Detroit Tigers on two hits over eight innings in combining with 42-year-old Mike Timlin for a geriatric 5-0 shutout at Comerica Park.

Wakefield needed only 98 pitches to get through his eight innings because he was able to throw strikes with his knuckleball, which allowed him to keep the Tigers off-balance with fastballs and curveballs, too.

Had he finished off the shutout, it would have been his first since 1997. He had enough gas left in his tank, but when manager Terry Francona asked him how he felt and reminded him it’s only May, that was the end of the night for him.

“I went down the dugout and talked to him after the eighth,” said Francona. “When a guy’s pitching a shutout and his pitch count is not out of control, he’s earned the right [to stay in]. But it’s a long year. He’s not 21 years old. We want to try and take care of him. I don’t doubt he could have gone back out there and gotten them out, but it was the right thing to do for the long haul.”

Wakefield didn’t protest.

“I didn’t have a problem with it,” said Wakefield, who fanned six and did not walk a batter in improving his record to 3-1. “I’ve had shutouts and complete games in my career. I’m just interested in winning games. Timlin hadn’t pitched for a while, so it was good for him to get in a game and to keep him fresh.

“I don’t feel any different,” said Wakefield of his advanced baseball age. “I know they’re looking out for my best interests in the long run. He asked me how I felt. I told him, ‘I feel good. I can get them out, but it’s your call.’ For him to walk down the dugout to ask me tells me he was thinking of [lifting him].”

By the time Francona had his chat with Wakefield, the Red Sox were on top, 5-0, en route to their fifth straight win and seventh in the last eight games.

Boston posted a three-run flurry in the second inning at Nate Robertson’s expense that featured a walk, a double by Kevin Youkilis, an RBI single by J.D. Drew, a run-scoring double by catcher Kevin Cash (3 for 4) and a run-producing groundout by Coco Crisp.

Long back-to-back homers by David Ortiz (off Robertson) and Manny Ramirez (on Freddy Dolsi’s first big-league pitch) inflated the lead to five runs in the seventh.

But the way Wakefield was pitching, it seemed as if the Tigers could have batted against him for seven hours and still not managed even one rally. Detroit hitters were swinging at the first ball they felt they could hit, but there weren’t even many loud outs.

The only hits were Carlos Guillen’s single through the right side with two outs in the first and Ivan Rodriguez’s opposite-field double with two outs in the eighth. Detroit had only one other runner against Wakefield, on an error by second baseman Dustin Pedroia in the seventh. Between Guillen’s hit and Pedroia’s error, Wakefield retired 17 in a row.

“He was outstanding,” said Cash. “We talked about not falling behind so if he got to 1-and-0, he was using his fastball and curveball to get a strike. When he’s getting ahead like that, you have to swing early. You don’t want to get too deep in the count against him when he’s throwing the knuckleball for strikes.”

It took Wakefield a batter to settle in. He fell behind Tigers leadoff man Curtis Granderson, 2-and-0, on knuckleballs. Then he started throwing fastballs and curves to Granderson, missed with a knuckleball, but finally won a nine-pitch battle on a knuckler that Granderson grounded to short.

As an example of how he was mixing pitches, he baffled Gary Sheffield leading off the eighth. His first pitch, a knuckler, was a ball. But he threw two fastballs that Sheffield took for strikes and then froze him with a curveball for strike three. The next hitter, Edgar Renteria, saw a sequence of knuckleball, fastball, fastball, curveball and knuckleball, flying out weakly to center on the final pitch.

A mechanical adjustment helped, he said.

“Cashie noticed I was stepping toward the left-hander’s batter’s box,” said Wakefield. “That happens to me sometimes. So I worked with [pitching coach] John [Farrell] on my mechanics on the side. I felt more on line and I was able to take that into the game.”

And he forced the Tigers to knuckle under.

skrasner@projo.com