Welcome to Wednesday’s Morning Mashup. For the latest news, start at our WEEI.com home page or click here for the top stories from our news wire.

Braves baserunner Julio Lugo slides home with the winning run in the 19th inning vs. the Pirates Tuesday night. (AP)

WHAT’S HAPPENING LOCALLY WEDNESDAY:
MLB: Royals at Red Sox, 7:10 p.m. (NESN; WEEI)

AROUND THE WEB:

♦ The Braves beat the Pirates 4-3 in a 19-inning classic Tuesday night, but the ending was a sour one. Former Red Sox infielder Julio Lugo sprinted home on a grounder and appeared to be tagged out by Pittsburgh catcher Michael McKenry. However, umpire Jerry Meals ruled that Lugo avoided the tag.

Lugo did his best to back the ump: “I didn’t feel the tag,” he said. “He made the right call. I got in there.” However, even Meals later acknowledged he might have made a big mistake. “I saw the tag, but he looked like he oléd him and I called him safe for that,” Meals said. “I looked at the replays and it appeared he might have got him on the shin area. I’m guessing he might have got him, but when I was out there when it happened I didn’t see a tag.”

Said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle: “The game tonight deserved way better than that.”

♦ Longtime New England ski writer Roger Leo jumped to his death off the Quinapoxit Bridge near his home in the Central Massachusetts town of Princeton early Monday morning while being pursued by police, according to a report in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Leo, 64, allegedly assaulted an acquaintance at a nearby house late Sunday night. He then led police on a car chase to the bridge on I-90, where he jumped 47 feet to a rocky embankment, resulting in his death. In addition to contributing to ski publications and websites, Leo worked for the Telegram & Gazette for 34 years as a reporter, photographer and editor before retiring in 2005.

♦ Olympic silver medal-winning freestyle skier Jeret “Speedy” Peterson shot and killed himself Monday in a Salt Lake City canyon, according to police. Peterson, 29, won his medal at the Vancouver Olympics last year. He’s had trouble with the law, including charges of burglary, public urination and, last week, drunken driving. He was dismissed from the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy, after taking part in a drunken brawl.

ON THIS DAY TRIVIA: On July 27, 1969, the Red Sox outlasted the Seattle Pilots in 20 innings, 5-3, with Joe Lahoud delivering the key hit, a two-run home run in the top of the 20th. Ray Culp started for Boston and pitched 10 innings of one-run ball but did not factor in the decision. Which former Cy Young winner got the win after pitching the final three innings, despite allowing two runs?

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I like our team. Again, I’ve been around here long enough to know that [GM Theo Epstein] is going to be on the phone doing his due diligence, which he’s supposed to. I don’t need to sit up here and say what we need because I think my job is to get the most out of these guys and I like them a lot. But I also know Theo’s going to try to make us better if he can.” — Red Sox manager Terry Francona

STAT OF THE DAY: 10 — Consecutive home games in which the Red Sox have recorded 10 or more hits, following Tuesday’s 13-9 victory over the Royals that featured 16 Boston hits

‘NET RESULTS: Rappers Snoop Dogg and Warren G join forces with triple jumper Phillips Idowu to play 3-on-3 against a team of British basketball players for an adidas commercial. The English team includes Devan Bailey, who plays at Central Connecticut.

TRIVIA ANSWER: Jim Lonborg

SOOTHING SOUNDS: Bobbie Gentry turns 67 Tuesday.

Rob Bradford, the man with the laptop and fishing net, had it first: Julio Lugo is done in Boston.

The Lugo signing turned out to be a costly error for the Red Sox

After two-and-a-half disappointing seasons for the Red Sox, Lugo has been designated for assignment amidst a flurry of moves that include re-activating Mike Lowell and Jed Lowrie and calling up Clay Buchholz for tonight’s start.

Though he seemingly never had a strong fan base in Boston, LEEInks feels that Lugo at least deserves to have his Red Sox career glossed over one last time:

- Lugo put pen to paper with the Sox in December of 2006 on a four-year deal, hardly thrilling Red Sox fans.

-The shortstop didn’t exactly turn nay-sayers into believers out of the gate in the ’07 season, as he was hitting a dreadful .198 on July 2 and was viewed by baseball minds all over as the weakest link on a team that would eventually win the World Series.

This man could get on base at a better clip than Lugo

- On that day, the lowest point of Lugo’s season, Houston pitcher Mike Hampton was statistically a better leadoff man than Lugo, as Hampton’s .370 on-base percentage put Lugo’s .260 mark to shame.

- The 2008 season saw more bashing from fans, including this cleverly-titled blog. 

- Lugo had seemingly lost his starting job to Jed Lowrie entering the season but was able to split playing time with Nick Green thanks to left wrist surgery that Lowrie required.

- Lugo’s lack of defensive prowess has long been (one of) his Achiles’ heel(s). Brad Penny didn’t appreciate it last month against the Rangers.

- In 268 games with the Red Sox, Lugo hit just .251 and committed 42 errors.

- This may be the greatest stat I’ve ever found in my entire life, and I once spent a day on this. Want to know how loved Lugo was? A google search of “Julio Lugo sucks” yields 11,800 results! For a point of reference, that’s about equidistant between “Rick Moranis sucks” and “John Allen Muhammad (the beltway sniper) sucks.”

Wow. Lugo will catch on somewhere else before the season’s over, but that’s just devastating.

And so, as the Red Sox prepare to absorb a hefty portion of the money due to him (even if they can find a trade partner, they’ll have to pay the vast majority of the deal for someone to take him off their hands), we at LEEInks wish Julio Lugo the best of luck down the road. Let’s hope those google results go down.