Billy Koch Sighting on Saturday Night

Dustin Hermanson did his best Billy Koch impersonation when he blew his first save of the season Saturday night, spoiling a shutout gem thrown by Mark Buehrle. Clinging to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth, Hermanson allowed a solo home run to tie the game before giving up a couple hits to put runners on 1st and 3rd. He then intentionally walked the next batter to load the bases before allowing a walk-off single to the following batter. Hermanson only managed to record one out in the inning.
The blame should not be put squarely on Hermy's shoulders though, as Ozzie did another bone-head job of managing late in the game that most likely cost the Sox at least one run. With runners on 1st and 3rd and NOBODY out in the 8th inning and Buehrle due up next, Ozzie elected to let Buehrle hit and try to put down a bunt. Why? I don't even think Ozzie knows. There is no logical answer to that question. By sending Buehrle up there to bunt you are guaranteeing yourself an out and at the same time giving yourself just about no chance of scoring that run from 3rd on the play. Sure enough, Buehrle fails to get one down and goes down on strikes. Now granted, they still had 2 outs left to work with, but regardless, there is still no way Buehrle should have been allowed to get to the plate in that situation. The number of games where Ozzie's decisions have cost us are adding up. BTW, the Sox blew another scoring opportunity when Paul Konerko was thrown out at home trying to score all the way from first base on a routine double in the corner. The slowest runner on the team was waived home by Joey Cora, who was almost correct in sending him as the relay throw to home was wide, but the catcher was able to recover and dive back towards the plate to tag Konerko just in time. So had the throw been more accurate, Paulie would have been out by 5-10 feet at least.