Last night, the Boston Red Sox headed into their game against the Oakland Athletics with a 7-game winning streak coming off of a perfect homestand. After the game was over, the streak was done and the Red Sox had now lost 5 consecutive road games. In fact, the Red Sox record on the road now stands at 10-15. Of course it doesn’t hurt that they are 21-5 at home. Even with the loss last night, they still possess the best record in baseball at 31-20.

The Red Sox starters had won their previous 5 starts heading into last night’s game. That streak ended last night as Tim Wakefield and his knuckleball weren’t at their best. His knuckleball was flat and it ended up hurting him to the tune of 8 runs in 5+ innings of work. It also didn’t help they ran into Rich Harden for the 3rd time this season who dominated the Red Sox yet again. In his 5 starts this season, Harden has faced the Red Sox three times and picked up wins in two of them. He has now struck out 23 Red Sox batters on the season.

Before we get into the news and notes, let’s have some video goodness from before the game. Here is a look at some of the rituals the Red Sox do in a dugout before the game with Coco Crisp.

Remember the promotion about Big Papi calling his shot in the State Farm Home Run Derby I told you about on Thursday, well it appears the Yankees are none to pleased about it being a member of the Red Sox calling his shot.

“I think the Yankees are going through a lot of things,” Ortiz said. “It might bother them for a minute. But I have nothing to do with it. I did it with MLB and State Farm. I had no control over that.”

Eric Chavez is slowly working his way back to the A’s lineup.

Julian Tavarez has decided to become a free agent now after telling the Red Sox he would report to Pawtucket.

The A’s leadoff hitters have been struggling all season long.

Curt Schilling is up to throwing the ball from 140 feet now and he feels as though he’s about two weeks away from stepping on the bullpen mound.

“In my mind, two weeks from [Friday] I’ll throw a bullpen, and if I don’t, then something will have gone wrong,” Schilling said. “I just don’t feel like anything is going to go wrong right now. We’re getting closer to getting on the mound, and that’s where I want to get.”

“We’re starting to get to a place where effort level has to get to a certain point to throw the ball the distance we’re going,” Schilling said. “It’s giving me some insight on how this is going to play out.

“It was another step. It’s hard to get excited about throwing a baseball 140 feet. Within the context of what I’m doing, yeah, it’s great. It’s still a whole long ways from throwing a pitch in anger in a game that matters.”

Anything that Schill can give the Red Sox down the home stretch of the season is just a bonus to the already deep pitching staff the Red Sox have.

Mark Ellis made his presence known last night after missing the past nine A’s games with a hamstring injury.

Originally last night, it was thought that Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan was ejected for arguing balls and strikes. Instead it turned out he was ejected for arguing about J.D. Drew not being allowed to leave the batters box to get some more pine tar for his bat. It’s all a part of MLB’s way of speeding up the game. Kevin Youkilis was none too pleased about the rule.

“They’re trying to speed up the game?” said first baseman Kevin Youkilis. “For what reason? They made us go to Japan, why do they want us to speed up the game? If they want to speed up the game, why don’t they stop having commercials, that would do it.”

Youkilis was just getting warmed up.

“So guys can’t get pine tar but pitchers can still get rosin?” he said. “There’s nothing you can do to speed up the game. It seems like they’re blaming the hitters again but it’s not the hitter’s fault. This whole speeding up the game is just stupid – the game of baseball is a game of no time. Why do we need to speed it up?”

Last night’s game clocked at quick 2 hours and 27 minutes. Had Drew been allowed to get pine tar from his bat, it probably would have been a 2 hours and 28 minutes ballgame. If they are going to enforce the rule, it should really be when the Red Sox and Yankees play one of their 4+ hours marathon games.

For more slices of Boston Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Hartford Courant and Providence Journal websites.

And if you must see what the enemy papers are saying, you can check out the San Francisco Chronicle, ContraCosta Times and San Jose Mercury News websites.