Mindful of the predictions of an apocalypse on Saturday night, Red Sox manager Terry Francona offered a bit of gallows humor in digesting the defeat.

"The world," he said, "came to an end in the eighth."

Not quite, but for the Sox, it likely felt that way as they watched a bullpen implosion that featured eight runs crossing the plate that saw a 3-1 lead turn into a 9-3 loss (recap). In assessing what happened, the Sox could turn to any number of cliches.

Marathon, not a sprint. Lose the battle, win the war. But perhaps the most important one governing the reason why Daniel Bard sat through the Red Sox' bullpen meltdown by Matt Albers and Franklin Morales was this: You can't win them all.

More than any other sport, the 162-game schedule of the baseball season necessitates stepping back from the win-at-all-costs mentality that prevails in other competitive environments. That is perhaps more true of bullpen management than any other aspect of the game.

Under Francona, the Red Sox have long made decisions about pitchers' availability before games. They try to be mindful of the dangers of overtaxing a reliever at any given stretch of the season, and so they are willing to sacrifice some of their biggest assets on given nights, even if it means reducing their chances of winning an individual game.

The idea, ultimately, is that by keeping relievers healthy and fresh, they will be able to deliver the greatest positive impact to the team. And with Bard (1-3, 3.52), they need to be particularly careful in some respects. The lightning-armed right-hander is the team's most versatile bullpen weapon. Whereas Jonathan Papelbon is entrusted solely with the ninth, the Sox use Bard for the most pivotal situations of games, whether they arise in the sixth, seventh and eighth.

That flexibility means that he can be used in any number of situations. Overuse is an easy outcome, particularly at a time when the Sox' bullpen has been somewhat unsettled. With Bobby Jenks on the DL (and having failed to establish himself to date as a reliable pitcher), and the Sox having enjoyed few blowout victories this year, the opportunities to use Bard have exceeded what is likely ideal for his season-long health.

But that doesn't make it easy to lose a game on a night when a primary weapon goes unused. That, in part, explains why the Sox make decisions about availability based on the individual game.

Saturday illustrated the point dramatically. With Matt Albers unable to retire any of the six batters he faced, the Sox didn't have anyone warming for most of his 31 excruciating pitches. Then, when the team finally had a pitcher get up behind him as the game was slipping away, it was newcomer Franklin Morales, rather than Bard.

Bard, who allowed back-to-back homers in his most recent appearance on Thursday night, was tied for second in the AL with 22 appearances (in 44 games) entering Saturday's contest. His 23 innings ranked sixth among American League relievers. His 362 pitches were fifth in the AL.

Moreover, his usual effectiveness had dimmed of late. In his last five appearances, Bard had yielded four runs (including three homers) in 5 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking three. Perhaps it represented a case of the pitcher's early-season workload catching up to him. That possibility, at least, seemed to govern the Sox' decision-making when they committed before the game to not using their setup man of choice for a second straight night, regardless of the game situation.

"We made the decision before the game to give him yesterday and today. That’s why we do it before the game. Your emotions get the best of you during the game, and you want to use him," said Francona. "We’ve been leaning on him a lot. It’ll do him a world of good. It didn’t do us a world of good tonight, but it was something we needed to do. ... We’ve used him a lot, and in high-leverage situations. We just want to take care of him."

Bard had tried to lobby to be able to pitch prior to the game, but the Sox were insistent.

"I told them I was good to go. They said, ‘You’ve done too much lately. We’ll tell you now. If we said maybe, you’d end up in the game," said Bard. "It was hard [to watch the inning]. ... I want to get in there bad. Just competitive nature and also just wanting to help the team. But they kind of said that before the game and they stuck to it."

It was a painful way for the Sox to lose a game and to see a seven-game winning streak come to an end. The Sox had been 20-0 when ahead entering the eighth inning this season.

Yet while that record is now 20-1, the team believes that the bigger picture mandated that they jeopardize a lead on one night in the second month of the season, rather than risking a longer stretch of games by overusing one of their best bullpen options. The Sox are mindful that sometimes long-term interests require short-term sacrifice.

But on Saturday night, that didn't make defeat any easier to swallow.