Wednesday night, Wakefield and his knuckler had a good night, allowing just a pair of runs on five hits and a walk over eight innings and getting the win as the Red Sox closed out a sweep of the Blue Jays, 6-4, while Wakefield fell one inning short of his first complete game in one day shy of six years.

Wakefield struggled somewhat early -- seeing two Blue Jays reach base in each of the first three innings -- but the Red Sox posted four runs in the first and two more in the fourth, allowing him to relax and settle down to retire 13 in a row at one point.

"I felt like I got in a groove there. They hit some balls on the screws in the first couple innings, but I was fortunate enough that they hit it right at guys," Wakefield said. "Once we scored those four runs, and a couple more later, you kind of relax a little bit. You're not putting so much pressure on yourself to do so good."

"After we got the four in the first," Johnny Damon said, "it looked like they just fell apart and fell asleep and made Wakefield's job a lot easier."

The outing snapped Wakefield out of a recent slumber in which he had allowed 14 home runs over 35 1/3 innings in his last six starts.

"Once we got the lead, he had some real clean innings there," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "That was really good for him. He's been battling for everything he's been getting for the last little while."

While Wakefield's signature pitch drives his success, it's not the only element of it.

"Wakefield settled down and he really set the tone all night. He mixed in a lot of fastballs and curveballs and he pitched tonight," Kevin Millar said. "He mixes up things. He wasn't all knuckleball. He threw some great curveballs. He threw some fastballs when he needed to and I think he kept them off-balance and he threw a great game. That was Tim Wakefield right there."

"That's the game that I'm used to him throwing, mixing up his pitches very well, throwing them all for strikes and keeping guys off-balance," catcher Doug Mirabelli said.

Francona had spoken with Wakefield between starts, helping his pitcher work through his troubles.

"Sometimes you just try to reassure guys that they are as good as you think they are. You forget that even though guys have been doing this forever, sometimes doubt creeps into their minds a little bit, too," Francona said.

"I don't care how many years you play. It's nice to have a manager come up to you and say, 'Hey, keep grinding it out.' Because it's easy to lose your confidence sometimes. I'm not saying that I was unconfident, but it's nice to have your manager say that to you," Wakefield said.

Even before the game, it was clear Wakefield's knuckler was working.

"He had a really good knuckleball down there in the bullpen and when he threw a bad one, he had the ability to make an adjustment and throw a good one the next one, so that tells me when he has a feel for the ball when he can make adjustments in the middle of a bullpen," Mirabelli said.

"I haven't really felt very comfortable throwing. My start in Detroit [when he gave up a modern Major League record-tying six home runs Aug. 8], I didn't really have good stuff. You work hard between those two starts, and I felt like I had good stuff but the results weren't there. It can get frustrating at times. It's nice to just feel that, leave the bullpen knowing that you've got good stuff again and then they score four runs in the bottom of the first and it makes my job a lot easier," Wakefield said.

Now, Mirabelli sees Wakefield's knuckler -- along with Wakefield himself -- rounding into form.

"I think he's actually gotten on a roll and started to feel better about himself and better about his ability to throw strikes and keep hitters off-balance. His confidence level's getting higher and higher each time he goes out there."

Sox fans should be happy to hear that. After all, if Wakefield's confidence is improving, so is his knuckler.