FORT MYERS, Fla. — After a morning of meetings with the Red Sox baseball operations staff to discuss the pitchers in spring training, Boston manager Terry Francona held court for his first media session since arriving in Fort Myers. Francona preached a philosophy that has become familiar in these sorts of settings, namely that as tempting as it is to look ahead to the season to discuss expectations and questions for the 2010 Sox, there is little benefit to doing so before the team has the opportunity to properly evaluate its players in camp.

That said, Francona did offer a few pieces of insight about what certain players will do in camp. Among them:

–Francona said that he didn’t know what pitcher Tim Wakefield’s schedule would be as he returns from offseason surgery on his lower back. He did reiterate that he views Wakefield is a starter.

–Francona acknowledged that the situation with Mike Lowell could be “a little bit uncomfortable” given the signing of Adrian Beltre to be the everyday third baseman. Francona expects that Lowell will probably play some first base in spring training.

–The manager believes that Daisuke Matsuzaka’s upper middle back strain was incurred at Athletes’ Performance in Arizona. He suggested that the team was already planning on taking a “patient” approach with the pitcher’s spring training pace, given the belief that Matsuzaka’s injuries last year were related to his efforts to ramp up too quickly to compete. That being the case, the team seems anything but alarmed about having the pitcher avoid throwing for a few days while evaluating the injury.

–Bill Hall is most comfortable at third base and in left field, but the team also wants to give him time at shortstop after working with infield coach Tim Bogar. The team would also like to move him around the diamond, giving him a look at both second and first.

–Boof Bonser will be stretched out on a starter’s innings schedule, at least at the beginning of spring training, as the team evaluates what role best suits him.

A transcript of highlights from Francona’s session is below:

What are your expectations for the team?

We just had our first round of meetings this morning. We went over the pitchers. Like we always do, we break it up into two days. Tomorrow will be the position players and then Friday we’ll have our physical testing day which is a long day but a productive day and a needed day. That’s kind of where we are now. As far as how we feel about the season, we haven’t even been on the field yet. I’d like to get my uniform first and then we’ll get into some expectations.

What questions would you like to answer about the team?

We’ve got 60 guys in camp, or potentially, 60 coming to camp. Our goal right now is to not get that far ahead. We’re just trying to basically do what we always do. Anyone who comes through that door, whether it’s one of our guys that’s been a mainstay here or a six-year minor league free agent or some kid that’s trying to make a name for himself, get to know him as much as we can and make him feel real welcome and then try to get the most out of him this next six, seven or eight weeks and be able to evaluate him. If they’re ready to make our team and help us, good. If there’s a time down the road during the season, we can make sure we have a good evaluation where when there’s a need, we’ll have the right person.

What schedule will Tim Wakefield follow?

I don’t know, to be honest with you. What we’ll try to do is what we do with everybody. Again, we’ll meet with the pitchers on Friday as part of the day and what we want to do is put Wake in the best position to succeed. If that’s right off the bat, OK. If it’s not, we’ll do what’s correct. But again, we want to see guys put their spikes on and get active and go through their physical. But we’ll have a little bit better feel after the physicals. I do think he’s doing very well.

Is there a scenario where you could explore the possibility of putting Wakefield in the bullpen?

Wake’s a starter. Again, we need some time to answer those questions. Can’t do that today. We’re trying to put a staff together for the whole year. We’ll figure all that out. I think rather than try to answer that, I think the best way to go about it is to get guys really healthy and productive and then if we have to make decisions, we’ll gladly do that.

Have you talked to Mike Lowell?

We’ll handle Mikey like we handle everybody. He deserves a certain level of respect. He has earned that. We will do that. At the same time, we’ll try to get everybody ready physically. That’s our biggest thing now, especially for the veterans. Get them ready to play. Then we can make decisions. And I understand. It’s the first day we’ve met, you want to know what we’re looking for and question marks. But until we get guys healthy and productive and ready to go, there’s not a real sense of urgency in making decisions. Who’s going to hit second? Who’s going to be the backup first baseman? Who’s going to be in the bullpen? We just need to concentrate our energy on getting guys ready go play.

Do you expect that the situation with Lowell will be uncomfortable, given that Adrian Beltre was brought in as a starting third baseman?

We have to be realistic. It can be a little bit uncomfortable. Nobody in the game said it wouldn’t be. Again, mikey has earned that amount of respect and that will always be there. If our evaluations don’t agree with his, that happens sometimes in the game and you deal with it the best you can. That’s what we’ll do.

Have you talked to Daisuke Matsuzaka about his back strain?

No, the other day when he came out to throw, I was inside. And then they stopped the side before I came outside. I know he’s sore in his upper back on both sides from something he did at API. What we had already decided is that we were going to be kind of slow with him anyway. When that situation arose, we thought, you know what, the physicals aren’t going to be for another couple of days. There’s no sense in letting him throw a side. We’ll, when I say we, the medical people, [team physician] Tom Gill will be here, we’ll get a better handle on where we think he is and what’s the best timetable for moving forward with him this spring.

Why were you planning on proceeding slowly with him this spring?

Because of what’s happened in the past. Slow is probably not the right word. But again, last year he revved up so quickly and we saw what happened. I’ve probably used the word gas in the tank with him more than once but that’s a big goal. Slow is probably not the right word. But patient is probably the right word. Again, when this kind of showed itself the other day, we thought this is silly to let him throw a side today, especially when we’re going to have our physicals a few days later.

Have there been any other changes to his preparation this offseason?

I think he’s done a great job. He’s obviously spent a lot of time working at it, which is what we wanted. So that part’s real good. We’re at Feb. 17 or whatever, so that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think he agreed with it. We’ve come a long way as far as communicating, how he feels, how we feel. I think we’re on the same page on this one.

Did Matsuzaka ever actually throw a side session?

No. He just got loose. Long toss.

Have you spoken to David Ortiz?

I haven’t talked to David in a couple of weeks. I saw him in Fenway the last time he was there, then he went back down to Dominican. By all reports he’s doing great. It will be nice to see him in person.

Do you view there being only a couple of roster spots available at the back of the bullpen and bench?

That could be. We’re a veteran team and we’re built to compete to win. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. If we showed up and there are eight spots open, I’d say Theo had a rough winter. We’re supposed to have a pretty good team in place. Saying that, that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of competition.

There are guys who may not make the club on their timetable, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot going on. It never fails, it happens every year, someone pulls a hammy and things will happen. Nick Green last year came out of nowhere. There will be some things that happen during spring training that create some competition. It never fails.

Have you thought about how you’d like to structure the bench?

I don’t know that we’ve really even gotten to that point. We’re going to need to let spring training unfold. I feel strongly the first couple of weeks, just letting guys get going. You start evaluating and thinking about what this guy can do, you see a young kid steal a base and now everyone wants him on the bench because he can run, I don’t think we really feel that way.

You try to be careful to evaluate. At the same time, know there’s a necessity … [to] try not to go on numbers. Brian Shouse is a very good example. He’s kind of a left-on-left guy. He’s going to have to face some righties to build arm strength. And I talked to Brian about that when we signed him. He may go up and pitch in Clearwater and the wind’s blowing out and he’s facing not Ryan Howard, but some of their right-handed hitters …we know that. That’s part of spring training. That’s why we don’t go on numbers.

Is this a useful time to evaluate pitchers who may be added to the roster after the start of the season?

That’s what we talked about a lot today. Most likely 12 (pitchers) go with us. There’s a time during the season always when you get banged up, guys go down for a month or six weeks, if you don’t have someone to replace those innings, you get nicked up a little. There’s a group of guys in camp that even though they don’t make the club will pitch for us this year. We’re very aware of that. Getting those guys is hugely important.

Presumably, you can never have too much pitching.

I agree with that. It’s a hard thing for our front office to do. Because we are the Red Sox, it’s hard to sell guys. They come here, we have a lot of veteran guys in place. It’s hard to sell guys on winning a job coming into camp. But I think they do a pretty good job of that.

Do you have any plans to play Lowell at first?

I’ll talk to Mikey. I imagine we’ll probably do that, but saying that, I’d like to talk to Mikey face to face. I don’t see how it won’t be in his best interests, but I’d like to talk to him about it.

When will he be able to take part in normal baseball activities?

I really don’t know. He’s not even swinging a bat yet. I honestly don’t know. We’ll sit and talk to him. We’ll talk to the medical people. We’ll give updates when we have them. I just really don’t know. He’s a veteran guy to begin with, so we’ll just what we think is appropriate.

Do you expect anyone to be late to spring training?

We have not heard from anyone who’s not here, but there’s always that chance. Anytime you have guys coming from other countries, there’s always a chance they might not be here, and if there is, I’ll tell you, but so far there’s not anyone.

Aside from Lowell, Wakefield and Matsuzaka, are there any health issues?

The only thing I can foresee is that conditioning day, and Lowell and Wake will be the two guys that don’t do it. If anybody else gets to the point where they need to get held back we’ll tell you.

Where do you plan on having Bill Hall play this spring?

I think his comfort zone is probably at third, left field, we’ll definitely want to – we’ll put him out in right field a lot for obvious reasons. JD [Drew] is left handed, [Hall] is a right-handed hitter. Early in camp, [infield and third base coach Tim Bogar] is going to work with him at shortstop. I don’t know that we’ll play Billy early at games at short. I’d like him to get a bunch of repetition there early, and we can let a lot of the younger kids play the games early, get him some comfort there, and then run him out there as we get into our spring training season.

Will Hall play second?

Oh sure, we’re going to move him around as much as we can.

First base, too?

 Probably. We’re going to move him around see how it goes.

Is Jed Lowrie healthy?

I hope so. I have not talked to Jed in a little while. There are no red flags from the trainers – but we spent most of the day today, not the majority of the day, the entire day, talking about the pitchers. I can probably give better answers on those guys tomorrow.

Will you prepare Boof Bonser as a starter or reliever?

When we talk about starter’s innings, you may not see a guy necessarily start games down here, but there are guys who are going to get starters innings. They may piggyback a guy – and Boof would fall into that category. We want to keep him stretched out, he’s got starter in his past, he’s also had an injury. He’s an interesting guy. We’d like to get him lengthened out as much as we can, just to keep our options open.

How intrigued are you based on what you’ve seen from him before?

Very. We really liked him before. It’ll be interesting to see. And the idea is not to rush into him either. He has had some things go on in that shoulder, we know that, but he is very intriguing. He’s going to be a fun guy to watch.

We actually try to do that with a lot of pitchers. If we could do that with just about everyone, we would. There’s a lot to be said for building arm strength, repetition on your pitches, but it’s just not feasible to do it with everybody. You’ll see that from time to time we’ll send Pap or Delcarmen, or Bard somebody down to the minor league complex to let them throw two innings….

Very excited. Again, he’s been a guy we’ve really liked for a while. We have a lot of guys who fall into that category I was excited we signed Joe Nelson, guy with a changeup, big league experience, those guys are very welcome. And somebody, hopefully more than somebody, will rise, will have a big spring, and we don’t know who it is, but that’s part of what’s fun about spring training.