BOSTON -- Shortly after announcing his front office had fired pitching coach Bob McClure, Red Sox General Manager Ben Cherington declared it a performance-based decision. And the numbers leave little doubt there was just cause on those grounds.

Entering the first official game of the Randy Niemann Era, only three of Boston’s 11 active pitchers who’d spent at least a month with McClure had an earned run average at or better than his career level. Two of them had spent a big chunk of the season in the minors working with different coaches — Clayton Mortensen and Junichi Tazawa — while the third was converted reliever Franklin Morales. That list doesn’t even include the failed years of Daniel Bard and Daisuke Matsuzaka, either.

It simply wasn’t working, yet some still believe the move was based on the different styles of McClure and Bobby Valentine — a sentiment that became prevalent earlier this summer, when a report suggested dissension among the coaching ranks, and claimed Valentine didn’t have the chance to pick his own pitching coach when hired over the winter. That theory was also fueled by the presence of Niemann, a Valentine loyalist, who has been the assistant pitching coach since the start of the season.

But Tuesday afternoon the manager attempted to put that idea to rest, clarifying that he was indeed an active part of the process by which McClure was named to the position, even if he wasn’t part of the organization when the Sox initially brought McClure aboard in a scouting capacity.

“I don’t think he was on the first list (of candidates); after we narrowed down the first list, he got on the second list, and then he came in and he interviewed with everyone. I liked the interview,” Valentine said. “I continued to interview people. Then we were running out of time, and he was the best candidate out there that I felt, and Ben felt and, whoever else was interviewing, they felt.

“If that means he was my choice, he was my choice. I didn’t have someone I was going to take over him.”

McClure was a guy who didn’t like going to the mound mid-inning, while Valentine doesn’t mind doing it at all, which is probably a window into the differences in personality and style that probably doomed the relationship from the start.

But McClure’s biggest downfall was undoubtedly the fact that he couldn’t figure out a faster way to get Jon Lester or Josh Beckett back on track when they started struggling, that he couldn’t help Bard from essentially losing an entire season on the supposed precipice of his prime. And that he couldn’t help the Sox staff to anything better than the eighth-worst in baseball by the time he was relieved of his duties.

He did some good, with Clay Buchholz crediting McClure for some of his recovery, and Lester appears to be on the right path again. But too much had already happened. The performance was just too poor to bring him back next year — so the Sox, Valentine undoubtedly included, decided to waste no more time.

“Obviously, coming into a new situation, there were adjustments that he and I were making as the year went on,” Valentine said. “I thought we were making them. At this time, with six weeks to go, we thought just maybe a little different voice in the clubhouse would make a little difference.”

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BEFORE their first home game since his passing at the age of 92, and by having every player wear his retired No. 6, the Red Sox honored Johnny Pesky by celebrating a life that included 61 years within their organization.

The Angels participated, too, standing along the third-base line as the Sox stood along the first. They were there as Boston’s television and radio announcers read a tribute, as the stadium quieted for a moment of silence, and as a trumpeter played taps from shortstop — where the veteran himself played most of a career interrupted by his service in World War II. Pesky’s son David threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

And if there wasn’t enough tugging on Fenway’s collective heart strings before the first pitch, the Sox didn’t let the touching tales end just because the game began. In recognition of the 11th annual NESN/WEEI Jimmy Fund Radio Telethon, Boston’s first batter in the bottom of each inning was introduced by a patient of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. With each of them was identified the disease he or she is battling.

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A DAY after announcing that worsening symptoms in his left elbow would require Carl Crawford to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery, Boston officially placed its left fielder on the disabled list as he awaits a procedure scheduled for Thursday. The club also demoted third baseman Danny Valencia, creating roster spots for the activation of reliever Vicente Padilla and outfielder Daniel Nava — who went immediately into the lineup, batting seventh as the designated hitter.

Some have cast the decision to fire McClure and let Crawford go under the knife as a concession from the Sox, and the experimental elements of Valentine’s lineup Tuesday night didn’t exactly dispute that. Most notable was the manager’s use of Jacoby Ellsbury as his No. 3 hitter, a place where the center fielder had never batted in the big leagues, but which Valentine suggested a desire to explore in spring training.

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WHEN the Red Sox took the field Tuesday night, they did so with the left-field wall revealing a deficit of 13 games in the American League East — the largest number of games back the board has ever showed for Boston since the division standings were added to the Green Monster in 2005.

Overall, it was the biggest deficit Boston had faced going into a home game since they were 13 1/2 back entering Sept. 27, 2001.

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Dave D’Onofrio covers Boston sports for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. His e-mail address is ddonof13@gmail.com..