Boston Red Sox News & Notes – 6/4

Boston Red Sox's Victor Martinez, left, is out at home while attempting to score on a double hit by Red Sox's Kevin Youkilis as Oakland Athletics' catcher Kurt Suzuki, right, makes the play in the third inning of a baseball game at Boston's Fenway Park, Thursday, June 3, 2010. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

It’s not too often that a team like the Boston Red Sox belts out 18 hits and loses. But that’s exactly what happened in yesterday’s 9-8 loss to the Oakland Athletics yesterday. Yes the Red Sox took 2-of-3 from the A’s but yesterday’s result may have been different which leads to me to the following question.

Who went ahead made Tim Bogar a combination of Wendell Kim and Dale Svuem?

Bogar is in his first year of coaching third base for the Red Sox and at times he’s made some good decisions and other times, he’s made some bad decisions. During two different points of the game yesterday, Bogar made two bad decisions.

The first one happened in the 3rd inning.

Victor Martinez, who by the way is still hobbled by a bad toe, led off the inning with a single. Kevin Youkilis followed that with a shot off the Green Monster and instead of holding up VMart at third, Bogar sent him and he was gunned down at the plate. And oh by the way, the red-hot Adrian Beltre was on deck.

The second time Bogar screwed up came just an inning later.

Darnell McDonald led off with a single and then on a pick-off attempt banged his knee on the ground. He stayed in the game and would go to second on a Bill Hall single. Jeremy Hermida followed that with a single to right and yes you guessed it, Bogar sent the hobbled McDonald home. McDonald was thrown out at the plate by a great throw from Gabe Gross in right field. I’ve seen Gross play in the minors and I don’t remember too many people running on him.

Here’s the video of said plays:

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While I’m not going to say those two runs cost the Red Sox the game because it would have made it 10-9, what I will say is it did cost the Red Sox the game because it could have changed the momentum of the game. Runners on second and third with no outs is a lot better than a runner on third and no outs. The same goes with having the bases loaded with no outs.

Instead of heading out on a seven-game road trip with a five-game winning streak, the Red Sox now head to Baltimore winners of four of their last five games. That’s still pretty good in my book. And lest us not forget that the Red Sox were swept the last time they were in Baltimore.

We’ll be back later today with tonight’s lineups, batter/pitcher matchups, links and news of the day but for now enjoy the plethora of overnight links.

To open the links up in a new tab or window, use Control+click

Empty plates [Boston Globe]

They’re in a good spot [Boston Globe]

A successful struggle [Boston Globe]

After promising start, Wakefield just lost it [Boston Globe]

Status quo would be right call [Boston Globe]

Public trust has officially been lost [Boston Globe]

Selig won’t overturn call [Boston Globe]

Recap: Athletics 9, Red Sox 8 [Boston Herald]

Tim Bogar running on empty [Boston Herald]

Red Sox get picky with this year’s draft [Boston Herald]

Bottoms up as Bill Hall, Jeremy Hermida spark bats [Boston Herald]