The Sox are spilling out onto the field for their workout. Mike Lowell spoke a few minutes ago about his attempt to return from his torn hip labrum, and the significance of his ability to handle playing in the field and moving laterally. Here are some of his thoughts.

“If I don’t test it, I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t want to try to go after the ball any differently than I would during the game. I think you’re almost trying to trick yourself into thinking you’re ready. The writing will be on the wall. I’ll either keel over because it hurts or I won’t. I don’t think there’s going to be any mystery.”

“I think I’ll know pretty quickly. Moving left and right was what bothered me before. We purposely haven’t made those movements (in the last few days) because there’s no reason to re-aggravate it. Where we were in the season, we could take things slow, so we did it that way.” 

On how he feels now: “I feel great just walking around and sitting, there’s really nothing,” he said. “The action of swinging has never really caused pain.” 

How he approaches playing through pain in the postseason: “I think you’ve just kind of got to (man) up and go…Playing Wiffle Ball growing up, I never said, ‘Hey–this is a meaningless game in June. You always put yourself in the postseason.”

On the roster decision: “That’s a decision for Tito to make and Theo and everyone else. Whether I’m starting or not, I think it’ll be a pretty easy choice.”

On his injury: “The diagnosis was that this is not going to get better unless we surgically fix this. That’s the challenging thing, just because it’s just been so long. It’s been something where I’ve had to be cautious about the steps I’m taking.”

On the matchup with the Angels–and the fact that the Sox have won nine straight postseason games from the Halos, but lost eight of nine to them in the regular season: “I don’t really think it’s a big issue. I don’t think they feel like they’re the same team as last year. I don’t think that we feel like we’re the same team that lost eight out of nine to them (this year). I think they see us as an obstacle to get to the next round, and we see them the same. I think it’s going to be a very good series. It’s two really good teams.”