Targets acquired in Hagadone, Dent

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Draft day, general manager Theo Epstein said, is the only day of the year his attention could not be drawn to what the Red Sox were doing on the field, even if Curt Schilling was working on a no-hitter, 3,000 miles away, while Epstein and his lieutenants were gathered in a conference room in Fenway Park.

The TV was on in a hallway outside, but with the Sox on the verge of making their first pick while Schilling was throwing in the ninth, Epstein instructed the folks watching outside not to make any noise, regardless of what happened. "The hit came," he said, "just before we closed the door."

Schilling lost his no-no, but scouting director Jason McLeod said the Sox got the two players they had ranked at the top of their draft board -- University of Washington lefthander Nick Hagadone with the 55th overall pick, and Wilson (Calif.) High School infielder Ryan Dent with the 62d overall pick, both sandwich picks in the first round.

"There was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of questions on players, a lot of Scott Boras clients," McLeod said, referring to the high-powered agent whose demand for top dollar drives some teams away from picking his players. "Everyone wondered where players might fall to.

"I called Nick earlier in the day and told him he was a guy we'd circled and earmarked."

The Sox feared that Seattle, which was picking 52d, would go for the home-state star. There was jubilation when the Mariners passed.

"To be able to come away with both of these players, we didn't think that would happen," McLeod said. "We're very excited."

Hagadone, a 6-foot-5-inch, 230-pound lefthander, began the season as a starter but was used as a closer for most of the season by the Huskies. He had 72 strikeouts in 68 1/3 innings, an average of 9 1/2 strikeouts per nine innings, and allowed just 62 hits. He comes out of the same program as Giants phenom Tim Lincecum, who was drafted last season and already is in the big leagues.

"I think [Lincecum's] a once in a lifetime player to be around," Hagadone, 21, said in a conference call last night. "I can't set my expectations as high as his. I want to get to Boston as soon as possible, but that's not in my control."

Dent, 18, has a scholarship to UCLA, but McLeod sounded confident the Sox would be able to sign the 5-10, 174-pound shortstop out of Long Beach.

Boston also selected Virgil I. Grissom (Ala.) High infielder Hunter Morris in the second round (84th overall); Pendleton Heights (Ind.) righthander Brock Huntzinger in the third round (114th overall); Southeastern Louisiana University righthander Christopher Province in the fourth round (144th overall); and Liberty-Eylau (Texas) High infielder/righthander William Middlebrooks in the fifth round (174th overall). The draft continues today.

Roxbury Latin pitcher Jack McGeary of Newton had been projected as a first-round pick but wasn't selected in the first five rounds, probably because he has committed to Stanford. It's likely he'll be selected today when the draft resumes with Round 6. The family declined comment last night.

It was Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills who alerted the media to the fact David Ortiz was in the dark about Schilling taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning.

"Ortiz came up to me and said, 'I swear on my children, I didn't know it was a no-hitter,' " said Mills, who had the manager's office to himself after the game because Terry Francona decided Mills deserved some attention because his son, Beau, was drafted by Cleveland yesterday in the first round of the amateur draft (13th overall). "After the game, he came up to us. You can go ask him."

Francona said Ortiz told him the same thing, and the big man owned up to his ignorance.

"I didn't know until after the first out in the last inning," said Ortiz, whose home run in the first inning gave Schilling the run he needed to win his sixth game against two losses. "That's when I got nervous. I looked at the board, saw all the zeroes. [First base coach] Luis Alicea, he asked me, 'What would you do? Would you bring the closer in?'

"He was messing around with me. I was like, 'He's pitching good, why bring in the closer? Later on, I looked at all those zeroes, and I see the zero under 'H,' I go, 'Wait a minute.' I'm looking around and everybody goes 'shhhh.' That's when I started getting nervous."

Ortiz's home run was his second in four games and 11th of the season. He went 6 for 14 (.429) in the four-game series, one in which the Sox managed just three hits Tuesday and four yesterday. Yesterday was only the third time in 14 games the Sox have won in which they've scored three runs or fewer.

Ortiz tried to bunt his way on in the eighth with one out and Kevin Youkilis on first, and would have succeeded, except when the throw to second momentarily got away, Youkilis got up and tried to advance to third, which was uncovered. He was tagged out easily. "I said, 'Youki, what the hell are you thinking?' " Ortiz said. "I asked him, 'Do you think you're Coco [Crisp]?' "

Schilling had come within five outs of a no-hitter May 26, 2001, but lost it when Ben Davis of the Padres blooped a bunt single in the eighth inning of a game Schilling won, 2-0. Davis was ripped by Arizona manager Bob Brenly and Schilling's teammates for resorting to bunting with a no-hitter on the line.

"The thing about the Ben Davis game, I was one of the few guys who didn't say anything after that game, and I never have," Schilling said. "It caught me off guard when it happened, but I wasn't offended by it. It was a 2-0 game at the time."

Schilling said he was mindful the Athletics might try to bunt in the late innings yesterday in a one-run game. "I know that [Mark ] Kotsay and Jason [ Kendall] both know how to play the game," Schilling said of the first two hitters in the Oakland ninth. "I was ready for it if it happened."

Third baseman Mike Lowell said he was looking for the bunt for much of the game. "I wasn't going to let them get a cheap bunt," he said.

Although Crisp, who has gone silent these days, declined to comment on his running catch in the sixth inning -- he'd made a similarly difficult play the night before -- Lowell talked about the play in which he got in front of Mark Ellis's bouncer in the seventh.

"It hit right where the grass and dirt meets," Lowell said. "I didn't want it to squiggle one way or the other. I didn't want to backhand it and miss it, then it's a double. I wanted to block it, and it was close enough that I was able to grab it. I'm not thinking no-hitter in the sense it comes to my mind. It's a 1-0 game; I don't want them to get a double. The percentage of backhanding it is not as good as getting in front of it."

Nancy Marrapese-Burrell of the Globe staff contributed to this report.