The Royals’ Emil Brown robs the Red Sox’ David Ortiz of a hit in the seventh inning last night. Boston’s Dustin Pedroia was doubled off first on the play.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach Bob Breidenbach

BOSTON — At one point earlier this season, when Boston had a commanding double-digit lead in the A.L. East standings, Red Sox ace Curt Schilling strolled through the clubhouse and announced that the New York Yankees had won an afternoon game.

“Watch out,” he screamed in jest. “The Yankees won!”

With the Red Sox losing to the Kansas City Royals, 9-3, at Fenway Park last night and the Yankees beating the Toronto Blue Jays, Boston’s lead is now down to eight games. Sure, it’s still the middle of July and there’s plenty of baseball to be played, but the Red Sox can’t seem to string together a winning streak these days.

After a three-game losing skid prior to last week’s All-Star break, Boston has followed each win with a loss in its last six games.

“We’ve played good up until this point,” said last night’s starter Tim Wakefield. “I didn’t pitch great tonight and unfortunately, coming off a great win (Monday) night with Kason Gabbard’s shutout, I tried to keep us in the game as long as I could. I didn’t have my best stuff tonight.”

Wakefield drops to 10-9 this season and the Red Sox can’t seem to give him much run support, especially when the veteran knuckleballer is struggling during an outing. In fact, the club has scored only 10 runs in Wakefield’s nine losses.

On the flip side, the Royals banged out nine hits off him en route to the victory. The Kansas City hitters weren’t being patient with Wakefield, swinging at his knucklers early in the count.

“They are an aggressive team,” said Wakefield. “I pitched well for the first three innings — it was 3-1 going into the seventh — and I kind of lost the feel for the ball. [The knuckleball] just didn’t go down at the end. I don’t know why. I was talking with Doug (Mirabelli) after the game and I felt I had pretty good movement on the ball. … It was just one of those situations where I couldn’t make the right pitch at the right time.”

Wakefield only threw 76 pitches and issued no walks.

Entering last night’s game, Boston’s bullpen had seen limited action in the previous three games. Thanks to solid outings by starters Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett and Gabbard, the club’s relievers worked only four innings during that stretch.

That has allowed bullpen kingpins Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima to get some rest.

“I would say any rest the bullpen gets, especially at this time of the year, is always a bonus,” said Boston manager Terry Francona. “Obviously there will be times when we have to lean on them; you can’t get around that sometimes. So the more they rest, the better. This isn’t April, when you’re trying to get work and there aren’t too many guys down there complaining about not pitching.”

After Wakefield was tagged for six runs on nine hits in 6 1/3 innings of work in his 19th start of the season last night, the bullpen was summoned but couldn’t stop the bleeding. Javier Lopez surrendered two runs and Joel Pineiro allowed one as the Royals ran up an eight-run lead.

While Boston’s pitching staff and offense struggled last night, the Red Sox made things interesting in the bottom of the eighth. Boston was trailing, 9-1, but it mounted a two-run rally off Kansas City reliever Joel Peralta. The Sox’ Mike Lowell began things with a single, followed by an RBI-triple by Coco Crisp to deep center field. Doug Mirabelli then provided an RBI-single. Julio Lugo doubled off Peralta before the right-hander was given the hook and replaced with Joakim Soria, who struck out J.D. Drew to end the inning.

Red Sox reliever Kyle Snyder retired the side in order in the top of the ninth inning, but Boston couldn’t muster any kind of comeback in the bottom of the inning.

“We’re not firing on all cylinders right now,” said Wakefield. “Hopefully we can change that and start a winning streak.”

jmcdonal@projo.com