The New Age thinkers in baseball's front offices and dugouts have been educating us for the past several years on the concept of "productive outs," such as a ground ball to the right side that advances a runner, or even a strikeout that consumes eight or 10 pitches.

All right, then. Is the baseball world ready for a "productive loss"?

We may have seen one at Fenway Park yesterday. One look at the lineup card written out by Terry Francona told the world that a loss was probable and a shutout was quite possible. Adam Stern and Alex Cora, 1-2? J.T. Snow in the 6 hole? Josh Bard and Alex Gonzalez bringing up the rear? The '61 (or '06) Yankees it wasn't. And that's without even mentioning that at the present time Manny is being anyone but Manny.

And who was the sacrificial lamb pitcher almost fated to take the L?

Tim Wakefield. Who else?

You wonder how many of the 36,047 in attendance went home babbling about the great contribution Wakefield made to the general cause yesterday. I would think you could fit them all on a Harley. Most people are into results, and yesterday's was a 3-0 Seattle triumph.

Was Wake outpitched? Yes, he was. Joel Piñeiro, who entered the game with a career ERA against the Sox of 7.71 and who was 0-3, 7.50 in Fenway, was lights-out, escaping from his one jam (bases loaded, none out in the second) nicely and then handling the home side with ease until lifted in the seventh. J.J. Putz (pronounced "Pootz") was downright Papelbonian, fanning four of the five men he faced. And "Everyday" Eddie Guardado worked a clean enough ninth (one walk).

But Wakefield was pretty good, too, and what matters most is that he was good for nine innings. If you're going to lose one, and this was one they probably were going to lose, then you could ask nothing more from your pitcher than to get every last one of the 27 visiting team outs, which is exactly what Wakefield did.

"It was a great effort," said Francona. "Most of the time, if Wake gives up three runs in a complete game, we're out there shaking hands and patting him on the back."

The three runs came in the third, and they didn't necessarily have to be, given that included among the happenings were a strikeout/passed ball that put Ichiro on first; a Wily Mo Peña misplayed liner off the bat of Raul Ibanez that went for an RBI ground-rule double; and another passed ball that brought home a run.

Of course, that's not the way Wake saw it.

"My job is to go out there and get my team back in the dugout," he said, "and I didn't do it."

What made it even more galling was the Red Sox' turn at bat that preceded all this. With walks to Snow and Bard (a professional 12-pitch AB that had commenced at 0 and 2) sandwiching a Peña one-hop ground-rule double just to the right of the 420 sign (loads of wash from several nearby apartment complexes could have been hung on its trajectory), the Sox had the bases loaded with none out in a scoreless game.

One Gonzalez caught-looking, one Stern three-pitch flail, and one Cora 4-3 later, the threat had evaporated. No Sox batter would reach second base again.

Wakefield 'fessed up to his big mistakes. "I left one up for Ibanez, and I got one belt-high to [Richie] Sexson [a hard RBI single off the Wall], which is in his hot zone," he said.

The Ichiro K/passed ball? "Probably the best knuckler I threw all day," Wake said. "It just got away from Josh."

Yes, it was a tough inning for Wakefield's new backstop, but that's life for a knuckleball catcher. ''I thought Josh did a great job out there today," Wakefield said.

Someday one of those bright people populating Theo Epstein's staff should sit down and research just how many times Wakefield has taken a big one for this team since becoming a member of the big league staff on May 27, 1995. He has volunteered to pitch on short notice. He's taken some poundings because his arm was still capable of going a few extra innings. He has started and relieved. And he has done what he did yesterday, pitching deep into a game that was pretty much lost and thereby saving the bullpen.

Oh, and he's gone out and won a lot of games that required no qualification, too.

Yeah, I know. They're paying him well for all this. But I rather doubt that most people understand what he has meant to the team by virtue of his durability and doggedness. What he did yesterday did not go unnoticed in the other dugout.

"That's a staff-saver," said Seattle manager Mike Hargrove. "Getting a complete game from a guy in a game like this is really helpful to the manager and the team. It may not show up now, but it will in August and September. Tim did his job. I'd take that outing any time from one of my guys."

Everyone understands that the major reason Wakefield can do this is that he's a knuckleballer. You don't recall him having a sore arm lately, do you? But so what? Knuckleballs may be annoying, but they're legal.

"I've never managed a knuckleballer," Hargrove said. "I guess it's OK as long as your courage can last. I've watched and wondered how other managers do it. But the fact is that you need one or two guys on a staff who can do things like that, and he is a staff-saver. It's really a positive when a guy can go out there and do it the way Tim does. It pays off, and managers really appreciate it."

This L is in the books. But before too many days pass, the Red Sox will win a game that will be traceable to Wakefield's performance yesterday. So it really wasn't an L. It was a PL, a productive loss, a category in which Tim Wakefield annually leads the league.