Knuckleball drama as Red Sox beat M's 11-3

BOSTON — Two innings of special baseball literally fluttered up from the ashes of yet another Mariners debacle.

Fluttered, danced, dipped and entertained.

That is what the knuckleballs of pitchers R.A. Dickey and Tim Wakefield did in the middle frames of an 11-3 Mariners loss that stopped being competitive by the fourth inning.

With Mariners starting pitcher Miguel Batista wilting like a flower in the Saturday afternoon heat, his team called on long reliever Dickey to try to keep pace with the knucklers thrown by Boston Red Sox starter Wakefield.

Dickey ultimately couldn't do that, as the Red Sox scored three runs with him on the mound. But in their own way, his dipsy-doodling knuckle-generated pitches were every bit as confounding as Wakefield's when thrown the right way.

"It had to be the first for a while," Dickey said afterward of the knuckleball showdown in front of 37,443 appreciative fans at Fenway Park.

In fact, Wakefield and Chicago White Sox reliever Charlie Haeger had dueled for an inning just last July. But before that, Wakefield had gone five years between meeting up with another pitcher who throws like him.

"He was throwing as low as 55 today, and I don't think I've ever seen him throw that slow," Dickey said.

Dickey's outing went well, for the most part. He entered with the bases loaded and one out in the fifth inning of a 4-2 game and notched consecutive pop-outs to second base.

But it was in between those outs that Johjima was charged with a passed ball, allowing Manny Ramirez to score from third base. The next inning, Dickey got the first two outs before J.D. Drew deposited a knuckleball over the center-field fence.

Boston piled on five runs in the eighth off relievers Mark Lowe and Ryan Rowland-Smith to turn the game into a rout. The Drew home run in the sixth ended a string of 14 consecutive scoreless innings tossed by Dickey.

"The three or four cruddy ones I threw, one of them happened to be that pitch," Dickey said of the knuckler Drew hit out.

But the majority of the 38 pitches he threw on the day were confounding enough to hitters that the call will likely go up again for manager John McLaren to insert Dickey in the starting rotation. Batista is not making things easy on his manager in that regard.

A day that began with Ramirez, back in the lineup after nursing a sore hamstring on Friday, drilling a two-run, first-inning homer over the Green Monster in left went downhill on Batista in a hurry.

At times, it looked like Batista was the one throwing knuckleballs. He piled up six walks in his latest abbreviated stint, one of those an intentional free pass to Ramirez the next time he stepped to the plate after his home run.

"I don't understand it," McLaren said of Batista's latest walk on the wild side.

Batista experienced command issues last month as he battled through an assortment of hurts. He now says he's healthier, but his command is an issue once again after a pair of decent outings his last two times out.

"He centered some balls," McLaren said. "All of these pitchers centered some balls and that's not good. They are good hitters."

Wakefield didn't center many balls after a ground-rule double by Raul Ibanez tied the game at 2 in the third inning. Seattle managed just one single after that off Wakefield, who lasted through the seventh and left with a 6-2 lead.

"You don't know where it's going to go," Jose Lopez, the only Seattle player batting over .300, said of Wakefield's knuckleball. "It moves. It's got a lot of movement. It moved maybe, like, four times."

Lopez went hitless but did draw a first inning walk that put two on with none out. But Wakefield struck out Ibanez and Adrian Beltre, then got Jose Vidro to ground into a fielder's choice.

Wakefield held the Mariners to a run over eight innings just 11 days ago in Seattle. His only other serious jam in this one came in the third, when, with two runs already in, the Mariners still had two on with one out.

But Vidro popped out to shortstop. And Richie Sexson, who went 0 for 3 after a three-hit game on Friday, grounded out to end the threat.

"He was the same, or better today," Vidro said of Wakefield. "Some really good stuff."

Stuff the Mariners will undoubtedly be injecting into their own rotation, via Dickey, as this lost season grinds itself out.

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com.