Thus far, Tim Wakefield has been the perfect complement to Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett in the starting rotation. He’s like the cream filling in an Oreo.

Pitching between the two Sox starting studs, Wakefield has used his floater to effectively baffle hitters in the early going. As the middle man in the starting trio, he’s eaten up a ton of innings with that knuckler as an extreme to the power pitchers flanking him.

Now if the Sox could just score some runs when he pitches, they might really be turning some heads around the major leagues. The Sox lost both of his games on the 6-4 homestand, games that with some more hitting, and fewer passed balls, might very well have gone differently.

Are we nitpicking with an 11-5 ballclub?

Perhaps, but the knuckleballer could easily be 3-1 - not 1-3 - with a little help from his friends. Last night, he pitched his second straight losing gem. While the final was 5-1, Wakefield left with the score 3-1, allowing just two earned runs on four hits over eight innings of work. This followed his 3-0 complete-game loss against Seattle on Saturday. In his last three starts, he’s posted a 1.56 ERA (four earned runs in 23 innings) after getting shelled in his opening start in Texas.

“It happens sometimes where you go through a little string or a little cycle where the ball club is not scoring runs for you,” manager Terry Francona said following the series-ending loss to the Devil Rays. “If he continues to throw like that, he is going to rack up a lot of wins.”

No argument here.

Last night, Wakefield again had in an inning where catcher Josh Bard committed a passed ball with a runner on third. That came in the fourth when the Devil Rays plated a pair of runs. There was also another excellent adventure play from Wily Mo Pena in right field in the same inning, although Pena did make a diving, bare-handed stab off a carom in the corner to prevent a double from turning into something more dire. He just looked rather comical doing it.

Mostly, though, Tampa Bay starter Scott Kazmir’s shutting down of the Sox’ offense, namely its power bats, did the trick. That prevented Wakefield, who was a bit under the weather and didn’t address the media following the game, from having a better fate last night. Between 3-4-5-6 batters David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Mike Lowell and Pena, there was only one hit.

For those keeping track, Ramirez has now gone 54 at-bats without a home run, which stands as the longest drought of his career. Last year was his previous high, 39 ABs, before he went yard against these very same Devil Rays.

While he’s looked much better at the plate in recent games, the lack of his pop really shows when the team loses.

“Manny will be fine,” Ortiz insisted last night. “Everyone knows Manny. He keeps working on (expletive). He keeps working on his stuff. He keeps working, he keeps working. When he finds it, look out.”

Francona jokingly bet the media a dollar - “make it two bucks” - Manny would bust out soon.

“Guys like Manny, they get to their level and it will be fun to watch because it will be in bunches,”Francona said.

To a man, the players know they owe Wakefield more run support down the road, and figure it will even out in the end. While some media fingers were pointing Bard’s way (six passed balls in the four Wakefield starts he’s caught), captain Jason Varitek would have none of that.

“Bard shouldn’t be a topic. He’s catching Wake and he’s doing a good job,” Varitek said. “You can’t take away one run and make him an example. We haven’t scored runs for Wake. That’s the bigger issue.”

Once they do, and Schilling and Beckett continue to do their thing, there won’t be many teams featuring a better 1-2-3 punch than the Sox.