FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Red Sox held their first formal workout inside the brand new jetBlue Park Tuesday morning as manager Bobby Valentine threw and batted balls off the left and right field walls to simulate cutoff plays and throwing in the park that has the identical outfield dimensions as the club’s Fenway Park home.

Valentine said he is making a point this year of improving outfield defense and throwing strength, trying to improve the throwing arms of all of his outfielders.

“Part of the program today was cutoffs and positioning with our relays,” Valentine said. “This is our ballpark and we’re going to play at least 81 games in it and it’s great to have it and practice in. So, because there are a couple of nooks and crannies that are particular to ours, I think, obviously, our cutoffs and relays are a little different at times so, it’s good.”

Eight-time Gold Glover Dwight Evans paid a visit to Red Sox camp on Tuesday.

“I’d love to talk to Dwight about that,” Valentine said. “He’s one of the good men. And, I hear [Carl Yastrzemski] comes to camp, too. I hope I can get him over. There hasn’t been an invite out only because I didn’t know he’d be down here.”

While Valentine was poking fun at Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez for fighting the now-retired Jason Varitek, Valentine took a shot at another Yankee, Derek Jeter, and his famous cutoff play near the plate that resulted in a crucial put out of Jeremy Giambi in Game 4 of the 2001 ALDS.

“We’ll never practice that. We’ll never practice that. I think the ball gets him out if he doesn’t touch it, personally. But the Jeter-like simulation today is the idea what the first baseman and third baseman do as the ball is coming in.”

Outfield prospect Che-Hsuan Lin has already impressed with his arm in the outfield in workouts.

“I know we have one outstanding thrower according to [outfield instructor/first base coach]Alex Ochoa, and it’s not Alex and he was an outstanding thrower. Lin is in a different place. From reports, a couple of the arms are a little lower on the rating scale, and we’re going to try to adjust for that.” Read the rest of this entry »

The praise began to pour in on Tuesday for Red Sox captain Jason Varitek, who will retire on Thursday in Fort Myers. (AP)

FORT MYERS, Fla. — With the news spreading of the retirement of Red Sox captain Jason Varitek on Thursday, the players he leaves behind in the clubhouse began to react on Tuesday.

Clay Buchholz:
“It was awesome being a part getting to play four seasons with him and being able to throw to a guy that everybody is going to remember as the captain of the Boston Red Sox. It was a good time for everybody. I hope his decision makes him and his family happy and they go with their lives and know that he was one of the greatest guys ever behind the plate.”

What he learned from Varitek:
“How to pitch. He’s a guy that you know when you’re on the mound and you shake him off and he sort of just stares at you, you’re like, ‘OK, I won’t throw that pitch. Don’t worry about it.’ Especially being a young guy coming up and you’re already intimated by just pitching in front of 40,000 people at Fenway and then you have Jason Varitek catching you.

“How to slow the game down, how to pitch to certain guys, how to get out of situations. He was a vocal part of my learning experience in baseball.

What he remembers about Varitek calling the no-hitter of Sept. 2, 2007 vs. Orioles:
“A couple of times, early in the game, I shook him off a couple of times and had a couple of missiles hit and they were caught but after that, it was like, ‘OK, I’m just going to throw what he puts down.’ The game started to speed up on me a couple of times. I remember him calling timeout, running out there and telling me to take a couple of deep breaths and throw a pitch wherever, down and away, get a ground ball and get out of an inning. That’s what I’ll always remember about him, he was always the guy that could always calm you down when he things were starting to speed up.”

Did he expect Varitek to show in camp?:
“He’s an animal. You see how every year he comes into spring training, what he looks like, how his body is a specimen. I was expecting Tek to play until he was 60. He was awesome behind [the plate] and still think he could be awesome behind the plate and have a job in baseball but that was his and his family’s decision.”

Jarrod Saltalamacchia:
“He meant a lot obviously. He helped me out a lot last year. The year before, he was trying to recover from injury so we didn’t get to spend a lot of on-field time together but still picking his brain a lot. But last year, [he] was a huge, huge help for getting my career back on track. And just the person he is, you can’t find a better person.

“Just the way he went about his business, watching him. Wasn’t even in the clubhouse, but I could just see from across the field how people looked at him, how people respected him. You definitely look up to a guy like that.”

What Varitek did for helping him lead the Red Sox pitching staff:
“I was definitely a little hesitant. I didn’t know how to act towards the pitchers. I always kind of looked toward him, ‘Get this meeting started, get this started.’ But he did an unbelievable job of letting those guys where I stood and where he stood. It was kind of overwhelming. I didn’t expect that, didn’t expect him to be so helpful and [tell me], ‘Hey man, this is your team.’ I said, ‘You’re the captain, it’s your team.’

“That’s the kind of person he is. He always wanted to make me feel comfortable. He always wanted to make me feel comfortable. He always wanted to help me out, stuck up for me and I can’t thank him enough for jump-starting my career.” Read the rest of this entry »

David Ortiz says these 2012 Red Sox have clean slate in his mind. (Mike Petraglia, WEEI.com)

FORT MYERS, Fla. — After an extensive interview with Dennis & Callahan Monday morning, David Ortiz stood in the Red Sox clubhouse and said he isn’t worried about a repeat of the snitching that Josh Beckett told Rob Bradford occurred last season.

“I’ve got no problem,” Ortiz said when asked about his comfort level with his current teammates. “I come here to play baseball. [Snitching] ain’t something I worry about.”

Ortiz also told reporters he’s confident that the front office has done what’s necessary to clean up the atmosphere in the clubhouse.

“Hopefully, as an organization they take care of business with that. If you do the right thing, you’re not going to be [a problem].”

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Speaking publicly to the Boston media for the first time since Detroit’s Justin Verlander narrowly edged him out for the 2011 American League MVP, Jacoby Ellsbury said Sunday that he admits he was a little disappointed that the best year of his career so far didn’t result in winning the award.

“Well, we’re playing against the best competition in the world,” Ellsbury said. “Obviously, I did everything I could, left it all on the field last year. When I found out about the results, I was happy for Justin Verlander but at the same time, being as competitive as I am, I wish I would’ve won. I bet if you ask all those other guys, they would say the same thing, too. That’s how I look at it, we’re playing against the best players in the world, definitely held my head high and finished second.”

Ellsbury hinted that that award might be one of the goals he’s setting for himself this season as he looks to follow up a season in which he batted .321 with 32 homers while driving in 105 runs.

“I went into my workouts how I went about it last year and made goals for this coming season,” Ellsbury said. “I think the biggest thing is to continue what I’ve been doing. Those goals, I always say at the beginning of the year, I revisit them throughout the season. They’re personal goals. I’m just excited for coming into this season.”

In edging out Ellsbury, Verlander became the first starting pitcher in 25 years to be voted Most Valuable Player, adding it to the Cy Young Award he also captured.

Verlander earned the American League MVP honor, receiving 13 of 28 first-place votes and 280 points in voting announced by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Ellsbury was second with four first-place votes and 242 points, followed by Toronto right fielder Jose Bautista with five first-place votes and 231 points, Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson with 215 and Detroit first baseman Miguel Cabrera with 193.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Before heading out to the batting cage to take 30 swings, Carl Crawford sat down with John Henry to hear an apology from the Red Sox principal owner about remarks he made last October, indicating he never wanted to sign Crawford.

“It went extremely well,” Crawford said of their meeting that lasted over 10 minutes. “He was apologetic and I accepted his apology and we both agreed to just move and go from there.”

A career .293 hitter, Crawford batted just .255 last season, including .155 in April, with 11 homers and 56 RBIs, after signing a seven-year, $142 million deal prior to the 2011 season.

“When someone is genuinely sorry for something, you can tell,” Crawford said. “I think he was genuinely sorry for it. I apologized for the season I had. Had I played better, he wouldn’t had to say that so we just both exchanged words that were good. I thinke we were able to clear the air and now it’s just time to move on.”

Crawford said he felt very comfortable talking with Henry during the early afternoon meeting.

“It felt really good. I like those kind of meetings where you just kind of clear the air and make everything better,” Crawford said. “I think it’s best for the organization and best for everybody that we all get along and that’s the way it should be. He’s the kind of guy who is really soft-spoken, really easy to talk to. He actually came in with a smile on his face so I knew things were going to be good from there.

“He handled it really well and made it really easy for me. It wasn’t nothing I had to get off my chest. It wasn’t like I hated the guy or nothing like that. It was just like ‘I accept your apology, let’s move on. I have no hard feelings for you or anybody else around here.’ I think we both share the same goal which is to help the Red Sox win. We’ll be better off. We’ll become stronger and the bond will be closer from his saying that. That’s the way I look at it.”

Meanwhile, Crawford said he’s been taking swings in the cage all week and hopes to be ready for opening day after offseason wrist surgery. Manager Bobby Valentine said Crawford is at about 80 percent, taking 30-35 swings a day and did not rule out Crawford being ready for the April 5 opener in Detroit.

After being dealt from the Cubs, Chris Carpenter eyes a spot with the Red Sox. (AP)

FORT MYERS, Fla. — When you’re the player involved in the most-publicized trade of the offseason, you learn to adjust to the attention.

So it was for Chris Carpenter in the last several weeks as word spread that he could be the pitcher on the Cubs’ 40-man roster that would be going to Boston to complete the compensation package for Cubs’ President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein.

His first reaction?

“It was kind of one of those things where it was a little bit of a shock,” Carpenter said. “But I’m excited to be here and get to work.

“We all knew something was going to happen. It was like one of those things where we talked about, ‘What if it was you?’ You try not to think about it all the time. It was me and I’m here now and I’m happy to be here. It’s something you don’t really think about but it’s kind of cool.”

Still, while reporting to Arizona, where the Cubs train, Carpenter did his level best not to think about moving too much.

“We tried not to talk about it,” he said. “It was one of those things where we knew something was coming,” Carpenter said Friday in front of his locker. “You didn’t want to take away from getting your work done on the field [by] talking about that and always worrying about that but it was just one of those things where they called me in and told me and I’m here.”

Once it was over, Carpenter said his goodbyes to Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer and the Cubs staff and was ready to move on.

“I met Theo and Jed,” Carpenter said. “They were both good guys in the short time I knew them. Jed took me into the office and told me. Theo was back in Boston for family issues but he called me and left me a nice voicemail. He was nice about the whole issue.

“He was really business-like and our coaches were in the office, too, and they had been traded before and they just told me to just take a positive attitude. Everybody was really professional about the whole thing.”

The 26-year-old right-hander appeared in 42 combined games in relief at Double-A, Triple-A and for the Cubs in 2011. With the big league club he posted a 2.79 ERA in 10 relief outings in his first major league action. He is 21-19 with a 3.62 ERA in four minor league seasons.

What can he bring to the Red Sox?

“Power arm reliever,” said Carpenter, who’s been clocked between 95 and 97 MPH. “Hopefully, come out and throw strikes and I’ll get [people] out in the late innings of the game.”

His command is what has held him back to this point, walking 159 batters in 341 innings in four minor league seasons, after the Cubs selected him in the third round of the 2008 draft. Read the rest of this entry »

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Just as he is ready to make the switch to the starting rotation, Daniel Bard wants to make another important transition in his Red Sox career – that of a prominent spokesman and fundraiser for the Jimmy Fund.

In a tradition started in 2006, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has chosen Bard to be the 2012 Jimmy Fund “Rally against Cancer” spokesman.

Bard joins Tim Wakefield, Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, and Trot Nixon as Red Sox players who serve as an ambassador for the Jimmy Fund to raise awareness and build support for cancer care and research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“I am honored to work with the Jimmy Fund in this role,” said Bard.

“Rally Against Cancer” encourages Red Sox fans to partner with their workplaces and schools by encouraging co-workers, classmates, and friends to each contribute $5 or more to the Jimmy Fund. In exchange, they can “Dress for Sox-cess” by wearing Boston Red Sox gear to work or school on Friday, April 13, when the Sox take on the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park for their home opener.

The top fundraising workplace and school (K-12 and college or university) are each eligible for a visit from Bard, if located within two-hour travel distance from Boston.

This year’s event adds a new twist—the second highest fundraising team (workplace or school) after the top fundraising school and business, can also win a visit from Bard (The full contest rules can be found at RallyAgainstCancer.org).

In the previous six years, Rally Against Cancer has raised $2.5 million to support the fight against cancer at Dana-Farber. This year, the program hopes to raise $650,000. For more information about Rally, please visit RallyAgainstCancer.org and follow the Rally Against Cancer hashtag on Twitter: #Rally.