Dave Magadan spent the weekend, like you, witnessing the occurrences in New York. But as the losses mounted, there was at least one thing Magadan did not lose.

Unlike a hitter, who only has to be concerned with his own performance at the plate, hitting coach Dave Magadan has an entire lineup of players to worry about, including David Ortiz. (Bill Greene / Globe Staff Photo)

His sense of humor.

"Are you calling to talk about [President Obama's] health care plan?" the Red Sox hitting coach joked when reached by phone yesterday.

Today, the Red Sox are winners again, finally, following last night's 6-5 victory over the Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park. The Sox scored two runs in the first inning against Tigers starter Edwin Jackson, two more in the second, and one each in the fifth and seventh. Overall, the Red Sox had as many hits (12) as they did over a stretch of 28 innings against the Yankees, bringing at least a temporary reprieve from a six-game stretch against New York and Tampa Bay during which the Red Sox went 0-6 while batting .174 and scoring a mere 14 runs.

Magadan suffered last week, as any major league coach would have. He knows too much about hitting not to have. Magadan batted .288 during a major league career that covered parts of 16 seasons, finishing third in the National League batting race with a .328 average for the 1990 New York Mets. He does not need anyone to explain to him just how miserable last week was for the Red Sox because his body did that for him.

"Oh, gosh. Ask me how much sleep I've gotten," Magadan said. "It's tough. It's so much different than when you're a player. Any hitting coach will tell you that, as a player, you're just worried about yourself. As a hitting coach, I'm worried about everyone. That game in Baltimore when we scored 18 runs [on Aug. 2], everything was good, right? But David [Ortiz] went 0 for 5 and so I'm trying to help him."

Of course, as Bill Parcells taught us and no matter what anybody else suggests, it's all about the groceries. You simply cannot make an extravagant meal without the necessary ingredients. The Red Sox suddenly seem to have a number of players in their lineup who are aging or underperforming, and there is only so much any coach can do. That is probably truer in baseball than in any other of the four major team sports, largely because of the division of labor.

Joe Kerrigan? He had a reputation here as a good pitching coach. In 1997, under Kerrigan's watch and the year before Pedro Martinez joined the Boston staff, the Red Sox finished 12th among the 14 American League clubs in ERA. In Martinez's first two seasons, the Sox jumped to second, then first. The Sox made a similar offensive jump from 2000 to 2002 after making Manny Ramirez the centerpiece of their lineup. During that span, the Sox went from 12th in the league in runs scored to seventh, then second. In each of the three seasons after that, the Sox ranked first.

During that stretch, the Sox changed hitting coaches from Jim Rice (in 2000), to Rick Down (in 2001), to Dwight Evans (in 2002), to Ron Jackson (2003-2006). Magadan is now in his third season. Up until this year the production generally has remained steady, offering further evidence that the drop in production (the Sox rank fifth in the AL in runs scored) has far more to do with the ingredients -- after all, Ramirez is gone now -- than it does with the chef.

Magadan knows what his job is. He is part researcher, part psychologist, part tactician. No one doubts his knowledge or his work ethic, and Magadan has merely continued the methods he always has employed.

"I'd like to think so," he said. "You certainly try to do the things you've done all year. You prepare the guys and you educate them on who's pitching that night. You give them extra [batting practice] and you give them the positive reinforcement they need. ... I don't underestimate any part of my job because you never know when you say something and, a month later, a player might come back and say, 'Hey, that really hit home,' and I won't even remember saying it. I think we have an advance scouting department that's second to none and that makes my job easier."

And then, lest anyone forget, the pitchers have something to say about the outcome, too.

Last week, against the Rays and Yankees, the Red Sox faced a succession of power arms: Matt Garza and David Price in Tampa; Joba Chamberlain, A.J., Burnett and CC Sabathia in New York. Andy Pettitte, who shut them down on Sunday, has a 1.87 ERA in his last five starts. All of that seemed caused for alarm entering last night's game, though maybe we all missed the far more relevant point: Jackson entered the game with a 5.44 ERA in his career against Boston with an 0-4 record and 7.14 ERA at Fenway Park.

Before the end of the season, the obvious concern is that the Sox will see as many good pitchers as bad ones, particularly in the American League East. Justin Verlander of the Tigers awaits them on Thursday. The Sox still have six more games with the Yankees, six more with the Rays, nine more with the Toronto Blue Jays. That means as many as three more meetings with Roy Halladay. They could see Mark Buehrle later this month and Zack Greinke in September, and, thanks to last week, now have virtually no margin for error.

"We have expectations for our team that it really doesn't matter who's pitching," Magadan said when asked if opposing pitchers had a lot to do with the Sox' difficulties. "I don't want to have a team that's going to feast on a No. 5 starter. If we're going to go deep into the postseason, then there are pitchers our team needs to succeed against.''

After all, that was something the Sox learned last October.