The Red Sox’ Dustin Pedroia slides home safely past Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer on Kevin Youkilis’ infield single during the fourth inning of last night’s game.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

MINNEAPOLIS — Tim Wakefield has been known in his career as an innings eater, a knuckleball pitcher who can toss the occasional gem.

Last night, he did neither.

Wakefield ate only 2 2/3 innings, which gave the Boston Red Sox and their fans indigestion, putting the Sox in a big early hole in what eventually turned out to be a 9-8 loss to the Minnesota Twins at the Metrodome.

It was the shortest start for Wakefield in 243 starts since 1997 in which there weren’t extenuating circumstances. Over that stretch, he pitched two innings against Tampa Bay in a late-season playoff tune-up and earlier that year he had to come out after two innings In Milwaukee because he was hit on the ankle by a pitch.

The stinkeroo followed an absolutely brilliant start in Detroit last Tuesday in which he authored a rocking-chair-easy two-hit, eighth-inning shutout of the potent Tigers.

In that outing, Wakefield was able to mix in fastballs and curve balls with success because he was throwing strikes with his knuckleball and getting ahead. Last night, despite the fact Wakefield generally has success in a climate-controlled dome, his knuckler consistently was missing the strike zone.

As a result, when he fell behind in the count and didn’t want to walk anybody, Wakefield would turn to his 74-75 mph fastball, a batting-practice-speed fastball. The Twins were looking for the pitch, and when they got the relative meatballs, they hammered enough of them for clutch hits.

A couple of those get-me-over fastballs helped Minnesota erupt for five runs and a 5-0 advantage in the second inning.

With a runner on first and none out in the second, right fielder Michael Cuddyer salivated as a 74 mph 3-and-0 pitch meandered to the plate. He turned on it and ripped a double inside the third-base bag, with Justin Morneau stopping at third.

Up stepped Craig Monroe. Apparently it doesn’t matter what Wakefield serves up to Monroe, because he has had success against the Sox pitcher in the past. He was 6-for-19 with a pair of homers in his career, which is why Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire gave him his first start of the series, as the designated hitter.

Monroe continued his mastery of Wakefield. He feasted on a high knuckler and launched it deep into the seats in left-center for a three-run bomb and a 3-0 Twins lead.

After a one-out walk, Adam Everett, the proud possessor of 35 homers in 2,191 big-league at-bats, got ahead of Wakefield at 2 and 0. The next pitch came in at 75 mph and Everett hit it out — barely — to left, just past the leap of Jacoby Ellsbury. And just like that, the Sox were in a five-run hole.

By the end of the third, the deficit was 7-1, and Wakefield was on his way to the showers, the result of having been nicked for a two-run single on a 3-and-2 knuckler on his 74th and final pitch. Mike Lamb did the damage.

The Red Sox’ offense tried to fight back. The scraped together two hit batsmen, a single and a sacrifice fly by Mike Lowell for a run in the third, and a three-run splurge on three hits, a walk and an error in the fourth narrowed their deficit to 7-4.

And after an error by Lowell had gift-wrapped an unearned run for the Twins in the fourth at the expense of Julian Tavarez, Boston kept fighting. Coco Crisp’s second homer in as many nights, a two-run shot in the seventh, pulled the Red Sox to within two runs, at 8-6.

But Mike Timlin promptly gave up a homer to the first batter he faced, Monroe, and the Twins’ bullpen, notably Joe Nathan (12th save), held off the Sox the rest of the way.

Next Game

Tonight

at Minnesota

7:05 p.m.

skrasner@projo.com