FORT MYERS, Fla. — To understand spring training, it was worth watching — and then talking to — Bobby Jenks on Saturday night.

The reliever had been terrific through his first six outings of spring training. He was almost, he joked, unnerved by his success, suggesting (somewhat erroneously) that he is typically terrible in spring training. (He was bad in 2006, 2007 and 2010; good in 2008 and 2009.)

Jenks hadn’t given up a run in his first half-dozen appearances in a Red Sox uniform. That changed in a hurry on Saturday night.

The reliever would later tell manager Terry Francona that he felt “blah.”

“That’s what it looked like. Everything just looked a little flatter today than it did all spring,” Francona said. “Maybe the pressure of the Mayor’s Cup just got him.”

Francona was speaking of the “competition” between the Red Sox and Twins for spring training superiority in Fort Myers. The Sox had claimed the trophy in each of the last four years. When they gave an 8-3 lead to Jenks in the ninth inning, they seemed assured of running the streak to five straight.

But that didn’t happen. With assistance from a pair of walks and an error by first baseman Aaron Bates, Jenks gave up six runs in an inning of work. The Mayor’s Cup was lost, and the Sox had dropped their ninth straight spring contest.

And no one around the Sox seemed to think it was anything more than amusing. In spring training, preparation for the season is all that matters. A nine-game losing streak, and the Mayor’s Cup, are relatively meaningless to players and coaches. Jenks spoke with a broad smile of his poor outing.

“Healthwise, good still. Just one of them days. He was bound to show up one of these times. Couldn’t scale through a whole spring training without blowing one big one,” said Jenks. “Just one of those days where nothing was clicking. Mechanically, something was off on each one. Just all in all, it was a bad day.”

Asked about whether he understood the magnitude of his defeat, that it meant the Sox had lost three of five to the Twins during this exhibition season, Jenks acknowledged an awareness of the stakes.

“There was a rumor floating around here that it was an important game,” he said. “It was close [to the 2005 World Series]. Same adrenaline run.”

He left the mound after his inning of work at City of Palms Park to boos from the sellout crowd. That, too — the passion for a game in which the consequences have no bearing on the year — struck Jenks as amusing.

“I’ve got to get these fans back. I’ve got to get my Fort Myers people back on my side,” he said.

His opportunities to do so are few. The Sox have but one game left in Fort Myers on Tuesday. Until then, at least, Jenks will have to wear his defeat. It would appear that he will do so with little discomfort.