Red Sox manager Terry Francona announced Friday that Dustin Pedroia received a good medical report on the broken bone in his left foot and has been fitted for a boot to allow weight-bearing activity.

“The scan showed on Pedey a lot of healing, which is really good news,” Francona said. “He’s allowed to begin weight-bearing [activity]. He has to keep the boot on for approximately a week-to-two weeks, probably two weeks.”

Pedroia broke a bone in his left foot with a foul ball on June 25 in San Francisco and has been out since. The news is not as good for Jason Varitek. He was catching in a game at Fenway against Tampa Bay on June 30 when he took a foul ball from Carl Crawford off his right foot. It broke a similar bone and sent him to the DL.

“Tek is a little bit behind,” Francona added. “There’s not as much healing with Tek, which I think they expected. He’s probably a couple of weeks behind Pedey.”

[Click here to listen to Francona give an update on Pedroia and Varitek.]

Meanwhile, Francona said that while Adrian Beltre will start tonight, they will play it safe and pinch-run for him late if needed. Bill Hall started Thursday’s series opener in place of Beltre at third and had a home run while making two outstanding defensive plays at third and getting charged with a tough error on a sharp grounder by Josh Hamilton.

“He’s certainly not 100 percent, Francona said. “We’re hoping we get production out of his bat. He hasn’t felt perfect for a while.”

Francona said if he doesn’t like what he sees from Beltre in batting practice, he’ll take him out of tonight’s lineup.

Switch-hitting catcher Victor Martinez has begun to swing a bat lightly from the left side but it’s the right side and catching with his injured left thumb that remains the problems after a scan on Thursday.

“The left side, that’s the one thing he can kind of handle,” Francona said. “He’s swinging the bat pretty good, actually. Right-handed, still can’t do it and he can’t catch yet. Once he can get that glove on and he can catch, they can rig up a lot of contraptions to take away some of the pressure but he’s just not there yet.”

Jed Lowrie appears to be gaining strength after missing the first half of the season with mono. He played six games for Single-A Lowell, collecting six hits in 14 ABs for manager Bruce Crabbe before playing Thursday for Pawtucket and going 1-for-4 with an RBI double.

“He’s doing really well,” Francona said. “We got a report from Bruce Crabbe that was about as upbeat as we’ve seen in a long time. It said the last four or five days, the light has kind of come on with Jed. He feels like he’s turned that corner. We’re starting to see that player that we’ve all talked about. He’s not dragging, he doesn’t feel fatigued. He feels pretty good about himself.”

As for Jacoby Ellsbury, he continues to work out in Fort Myers, trying to increase baseball activity while rehabbing his injured side.

“He was actually working out with Tom Goodwin and he actually requested if he could do a little bit more,” Francona said. “There are some parameters set up for him for his day schedule and he wanted to do a little bit more, which we were completely okay with. It’s “as tolerated”, that’s his program. If he can tolerate more, ‘Go.’”

Francona said the Red Sox will activate reliever Manny Delcarmen on Saturday. Jeremy Hermida will play outfield tonight and DH Saturday for Double-A Portland.

The Red Sox made a roster move to protect their bullpen after getting only two-plus innings from Tim Wakefield on Thursday night. They selected Fernando Cabrera from Triple-A Pawtucket and optioned Robert Manuel back to the PawSox.