It was a night when the best his manager could muster was sympathy rather than a defense.

Red Sox third base coach Tim Bogar had seen a couple of runners he windmilled get gunned down at the plate. On a night when his club lost by a single run, absorbing a 6-5 loss to the Indians (recap), the two outs were glaring. It is entirely possible that they meant the difference between winning and losing.

The first occurred in the bottom of the third inning, with the Sox leading 1-0. With Marco Scutaro on third and one out, Kevin Cash hit a fly ball of medium depth to Indians left fielder Shelley Duncan. Duncan entered the game with six career assists in 46 games as an outfielder. Scutaro tagged and was gunned down by an ample margin at the plate, leaving David Ortiz standing in the on-deck circle as the inning ended.

The second changed the game and very nearly a top prospect’s career. The Sox trailed 6-2, with Ryan Kalish on second and one out in the bottom of the seventh. Daniel Nava ripped a single to Shin-Soo Choo, an outfielder armed with a howitzer in right field. Bogar waved Kalish, who was beaten by the throw by several feet and tagged out on a horrific collision with Indians catcher Carlos Santana.

The decision to send Kalish was, quite simply, a mistake. Instead of having runners at the corners and one out, the Sox had a runner on first with two down. They did no further damage in the inning.

“At the time of the game, he’s probably trying to be a little aggressive, a little too aggressive. You’re not going to go through a year where you’re perfect,” manager Terry Francona said. “Because of the way at the time [Fausto] Carmona was throwing, I understand what he was trying to do. It probably wasn’t the time to be as aggressive as he was.”

For some, the play was viewed as “yet another instance” of Bogar being too aggressive and costing his team in the process. There have been other examples, of course.

Still, it is the nature of the job that its failures are remembered and its successes all but ignored. For instance, on July 20, Bogar waved David Ortiz home from first on a double with one out in the first inning and the Sox up 1-0. Though the slugger appeared to be safe in replays, he was called out. The play marked the first time since 2008 that Ortiz had attempted to score from first on a double.

Undeterred, one week later, Bogar sent Ortiz home from first on a double against the Angels with one out and the Sox up 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth. Ortiz beat the throw, scoring from first on a double for the first time in two years.

Bogar said afterward that the decision-making process was identical in both instances, but with an obvious difference in results.

“The process is the same every single play,” he said in Anaheim. “You factor in who’s running, the situation in the game, who’s throwing the ball, who’s going to get it, where he’s at at the time the ball’s at the wall, how many outs there are, who’s up next, how we’ve been going — if we’re scoring runs or not scoring runs. There’s a lot that goes into it.

“At times, you’re going to take a couple of chances here and there. But it all depends on where you are in the lineup, who we’re facing, who they’ve got in the bullpen.”

Clearly, there are many variables involved in the decision whether to send a runner or not. And any time a third-base coach becomes a noticeable part of the game, it typically means that a failure has occurred.

“If he’s safe, you should have sent him. If he’s out, you shouldn’t have sent him. I know that’s what I live with every day,” Bogar said in Anaheim. “But for me, the bottom line is, if everything I’ve processed before the ball is hit comes to fruition, good things are going to happen.”

It is one thing to discuss the process, quite another to judge its outcomes. Because Bogar has had some glaring instances of runners thrown out at the plate, his work in his first season (as the successor to current Sox bench coach DeMarlo Hale, by all accounts considered an excellent third-base coach) has come under scrutiny.

The Sox have now had nine runners thrown out at the plate while either trying to go from second to home on a single (6 times) or first to home on a double (3 times) this year, most in the majors. Yet they have also generally been more aggressive on the bases, with more successful advances (either going first to third or second to home on a single, or first to home on a double) than had been the case under Bogar’s predecessors, Hale and Dale Sveum.

The Sox entered yesterday having taken the extra base on 39 percent of possible hits, a mark that ranked ninth in the American League. In five of the previous six years, the team had finished dead last in that category in the AL. Given the infrequency with which runners try to advance on hits to left field at Fenway and the fact that Jacoby Ellsbury has been out all year, this year’s aggressiveness on the bases is obvious, and presumably Bogar has a lot to do with that.

Yet — somewhat surprisingly — the Sox have also suffered fewer outs on the bases this year than in previous seasons. Entering Monday, the Sox had made just 29 outs on the bases (a category that includes not only runners trying to take extra bases on hits, but also attempts to advance on fly balls and errant pitches, as well as instances when runners were doubled off base).

That mark ranked 12th in the American League. That would be the best finish by the Sox relative to the league since 2006 (when they produced the fewest outs in the AL on the bases in Hale’s first year as third base coach).

Those statistical measures are imperfect. Nevertheless, that is one prism through which a case can be made that the Sox this year are gaining more from baserunning and losing less from their aggressiveness than they have in years.

Even so, Bogar is well aware that his job performance will be judged by the outs that result from his decisions. It is an element of the job that he simply has to accept.

“When you’re good at it, people don’t notice you. When you’re not good at it, it rears it’s head,” Bogar said. “That’s part of baseball. There are times when you take chances. You just try to take educated chances. You have to live with the result.”