Daily Red Sox Links: Bobby Valentine On Umpires, Carl Beane, Adrian Gonzalez

Bobby Valentine is not pleased with how the umpires handled the end of Wednesday night's loss against the Royals. The play in question occurred in the ninth, when Marlon Byrd, attempting to bunt, was hit on the hand by a Jonathan Broxton pitch. Or the bat was hit. Or maybe he didn't bunt quite far enough for it to be a strike. We'll never know, because the umps didn't look!*

*Ignore that you could fire up MLB.tv to take a look and see for yourself. This invalidates my intro.

"[Bleepin'] umpire can't make the right call and get help? It's a damn shame is what it is. Be stubborn. It's not his job to call the freaking play. Just get help. It's a damn shame is what that is. It's a damn shame. Then they don't want replay. If they can't get it right, they should freaking ask for help. Asked for help on the one in the outfield, I think they got it right. Why the [expletive] is it so hard to do at the end of the game?"

I don't think Bobby took the lack of a call very well.

Speaking of Valentine, he's putting the rest the idea that Josh Beckett could have pitched on Sunday rather than Darnell McDonald, if only he hadn't played golf on his off-day:

Valentine didn't ask any of his starting pitchers to pitch in relief in that game. He doesn't think it would be a fair thing to ask.

"Someone would have to come to me and say they would have to get loose in time, that they wouldn't need the regular rubdown and need the regular longtoss and wouldn't need the regular time in the bullpen for me to be able to look at the lineup card and pencil them in," Valentine said. "It's way out of the box, and what usually happens is a voluntary situation. I remember a situation in New York where Rick Reed came down with his spikes and said, 'I'm a quick one. I could get ready in five minutes.' He was available, and I didn't use him as it turns out."

Red Sox public-address announcer Carl Beane passed away on Wednesday afternoon, after suffering a heart attack that led to a single-car crash in Sturbridge, MA. Beane worked the PA on every home game since 2003, and his voice will certainly be missed at Fenway this weekend and beyond.

Why's everyone being so mean to Adrian Gonzalez? Maybe it's about perception, something Firebrand of the AL tackles.

Occasional Over the Monster Podcast co-host Jason Wojciechowski takes a stab at figuring out pitch sequence, with Jake Peavy and his change-up as his test subject.

The Red Sox aren't the only team that had expectations who have done poorly. And the Phillies even had bullpen issues, partially due to their manager! Schadenfreude or solidarity?