Last month, former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver – in a lengthy Sports Illustrated article – talked about how he much he hated what has come to be known as small ball.Weaver, certainly one of modern-day baseball’s more successful managers, never understood the value of giving away outs, regardless of how productive they might be. He wanted to see his batters get on base – any way they could – and then he wanted to see his big hitters knock in runs. Preferably, he was famous for saying, by hitting three-run homers.In theory, that works well. And it goes double when you have hitters like Frank and Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray, Boog Powell, Don Baylor, and other proven clutch hitters who are swinging the bat well.It’s obvious that Red Sox manager Terry Francona is a disciple of the Earl Weaver way of doing things, and for the last five years he could afford to be. When you had Johnny Damon, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and Mike Lowell around and in the prime of their careers and health, who needed to bunt? You just sat around and waited for them to ignite, or finish off, a rally.Those days are gone. The lineup, especially now, has too many automatic outs.Still, Francona seldom uses the sacrifice bunt unless it’s an obvious situation. About the most he’ll do is start a runner early to avoid a double play, and – once in a while – put on a hit-and-run.He has the luxury of Jacoby Ellsbury and his 50 steals, but it’s almost as if he feels that’s enough in the small ball department.It isn’t.Now, lord knows I think the whole small ball thing can be grossly overdone at times. There are plenty of managers who put their teams in unfavorable situations by bunting people all over the bases – at the expense of making outs they really do not have to make. And I’m inclined to agree with Weaver that none of it works as well as getting guys on base and putting pressure on pitchers and defenses.But there are times when you have to do something. And Friday night was a prime example of it. In the top of the sixth inning of a scoreless game – with A.J. Burnett working on a one-hitter (and that being the leadoff hitter of the game) – Nick Green walked and Ellsbury reached on a gift catcher’s interference call.Let’s stop the tape right here. It was 0-0. Both pitchers were lights-out. Any run, with those two pitchers, was probably going to suffice and – as events proved – did suffice.With Dustin Pedroia up – classic No. 2 hitter – you HAD to bunt. You HAD to get a runner on third with less than two out.Even if you agree with Earl Weaver 100 percent, I suspect even he would have understood the value of getting a runner to third so that a) you could score him on a sacrifice fly; and b) the Yankees would have to pull the infield in.Instead, Pedroia swung away on a 1-0 count and flew out. And while neither of the next two hitters got the ball out of the infield, I’d have still taken my chances with the sacrifice.Good teams find ways to win when things aren’t going well. They steal victories. How many times in the past decade have the Patriots just gone into venues and just robbed a team blind by coming out on top? The 2007 playoff victory in San Diego was the absolute most perfect example of that.The Red Sox are a good organization in that they place a heavy emphasis on winning – as opposed to simply making money, which has always been the Bruins’ problem under Jeremy Jacobs. The Sox will do the things necessary to put a winning product on the field, even if it opens them up to the same criticisms that the Yankees get.And the Red Sox have had teams, including last year’s edition, that have risen to the occasion and pulled themselves out of some minor tailspins before they began spiraling out of control.Sadly, this team isn’t of that caliber. You can argue whether the Red Sox shied away from making a hard-sell offer on Mark Teixeira, but you can’t argue with the effect he’s had on the Yankees.You can argue that the Blue Jays were probably never going