Marlon Byrd (center) has been the focus of a resurgent Red Sox offense. (AP)

This has been one weird season for Marlon Byrd.

The man who signed for $15 million over three years with the Cubs before the 2010 season was released by Chicago after going collecting just three hits in his first 43 at-bats this season.

The Cubs picked up the remaining $6 million on his contract and the Red Sox, desperately needing a major league outfielder with the injury to Jacoby Ellsbury, picked him up for the pro-rated major league minimum of $435,000.

Low risk, but so far high reward. The batter who was hitting .070 with the Cubs is batting .333 (10-for-30) with the Red Sox to raise his average to .178. He’s been one of the biggest beneficiaries of hitting in a lineup that produced more runs than any in baseball through the first month.

“Boys can play. Went through a rut. Had a great road trip. Came back and started off with a bang,” Byrd said. “Hitting is contagious. It’s as simple as that. I scuffled for a while over there in Chicago but coming over here, watching these guys, picking their brains, talking to [Kevin Youkilis] and little things he does has helped me. Sometimes, you need to re-learn, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan has had a huge impact on Byrd, sitting down with the talented slugger, who made the 2010 NL All-Star team with the Cubs before falling on hard times in the last 18 months.

“See the ball, hit the ball but at the same time, maybe spreading out just a little bit, making sure I get my hands back in my separation, tucking my front knee in so when I do separate, I’m not going back on my backside,” Byrd said in breaking down the mechanics of his swing. “My timing, starting it when pitcher breaks his hands so it’s not one thing. It sounds difficult but for me, it’s easy to put that all together and simply it.”

Byrd was known for his unusual leg tap and kick to trigger his swing. That’s great when it works but a huge problem when it doesn’t. What did Mags suggest?

“Mags is huge,” Byrd said after Monday’s 11-6 Red Sox win, in which he went 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored. “Mags just said, ‘Forget about everything you’re doing, go back to 2009, 2010, and let’s start over and go from there.’ Forget the tap step, forget the leg kick, get [front foot] down early and go to work. We just went back to the old work.”

The red-hot David Ortiz has also help Byrd by simply hitting in the same lineup.

“It’s unbelievable,” Byrd beamed. “It takes the pressure off a lot of guys when David does his thing. You don’t have to scrounge for runs. You’re not trying to get a bunt down or really try to hit a home run to get an inning going. He gets it going for us. He’s a fire-starter and that’s what he’s doing.”

Byrd had to overcome something else Monday – stepping into the same batter’s box in which he was beaned by now-teammate Alfredo Aceves 12 months ago. For the first time since taking a pitch below the left eye, Byrd had the chance to hit at Fenway, and showed no ill effects.

“You don’t ever want that to happen but it’s part of the game,” Byrd said. “Some guys get hit, some guys don’t. It happened to me. Hopefully, it doesn’t ever happen again.”

Byrd says he couldn’t be happier to have found a new home at Fenway.

“Wonderful, wonderful. I always loved playing here. Usually, I get booed. The only cheers were when I got hit last year and I stood up and actually walked off the field. Other than that, it’s great. I love it. I got to hear “Sweet Caroline” again in a Red Sox uniform and it didn’t feel weird singing it.”

Daniel Bard beieves the Red Sox bullpen will be just fine without both him and Andrew Bailey. (AP)

DETROIT — After the long spring competition, Daniel Bard secured a spot in the Red Sox rotation by showing enough potential to convince the Sox that he was on the path to becoming, at some point, quite adept at it. But shortly after he’d been named a starter, the Red Sox bullpen became unsettled quite suddenly by the thumb injury and subsequent surgery that will keep closer Andrew Bailey out until after the All-Star break.

At least based on track records, few relievers over the past few years could match the quality of Bailey’s work (quantity was and is another matter), given that his 2.07 career ERA is the second lowest in major league history among pitchers with at least 100 career innings since ERA became an official statistic. Even so, Bard is certainly capable of comparable dominance, with a 2.88 ERA in his three career seasons, as well as 9.7 strikeouts per nine innings. So, if the Sox felt that they needed to replace Bailey by finding a comparably dominant arm, the idea of shifting Bard back to the bullpen and adding Aaron Cook to the starting rotation had evident logic.

Even though GM Ben Cherington said that the idea of moving Bard back to the bullpen was never a consideration, and that the team remained committed to the idea of developing him as a starter, Bard at least recognized the possibility that the Sox might approach him about shifting back to a late-innings role in light of Bailey’s injury.

“I told them last fall I wanted the opportunity to start or close. I didn’t say for them to hand me the job. I wanted the opportunity. It put the ball basically in their court to figure out whatever was best for me and the team,” Bard explained. “They wanted me to be a starter. Obviously, with that choice, nothing was set in stone until a couple days ago. I definitely saw it as a possibility, but I think we have plenty of capable candidates who are down there who can do it as well, so it’s good where we’re at right now.”

Indeed, prior to the Red Sox’ Opening Day, 3-2 loss to the Tigers, Bard suggested that he “definitely” felt that the Sox had the necessary components to have an effective bullpen even with the loss of Bailey (and without the addition of himself).

“I think [Alfredo] Aceves is good in any role you put him in and just crazy enough to succeed. I think [Mark] Melancon obviously can handle it. He’s done it before. You’ve got other guys who can pick up saves as needed. You’ve got [Vicente] Padilla, who’s done it before,” said Bard. “There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re going to pick up the slack.”

Alfredo Aceves will be closing for the first time in his career. (AP)

DETROIT — When the Red Sox acquired Mark Melancon from the Astros, some skepticism existed about whether he was ready to close in Boston. After all, Melancon had spent less than a full year as the closer of a last-place team in Houston. While he had an impressive year, with a 2.78 ERA, how much — some opined — could be expected of a pitcher who had just 20 saves in the big leagues?

That perspective makes the fact that the Sox bypassed Melancon to tab Alfredo Aceves as their closer so intriguing. Melancon has years of closing experience as an amateur (he was a late first round or sandwich pick talent at the University of Arizona before an arm injury dropped him to the Yankees in the ninth round of the 2006 draft), in the minors and, yes, to a lesser degree, with the Astros.

As for Aceves? Scan the records of his major league, minor league and Mexican League experience over the last decade and you’ll see just four saves, his career-high of two saves having been recorded a year ago.

To Aceves, this is not a significant consideration.

“I closed last year,” Aceves shrugged. “It doesn’t make a difference. For me, no. You can say, ‘Oh, he was never a closer. It’s going to be blah blah blah.’ No, it’s not like that. Here it’s not like that.”

To a degree, where Aceves has done his work is less important than the kind of work he’s done. Last year, he was 10-2 with a 2.61 ERA, including a 2.03 ERA in 91 relief innings. He had a 2.37 ERA against American League opponents, and, perhaps most impressively, a 2.04 ERA against AL East foes, the best mark by any pitcher to record at least 50 innings while pitching against baseball’s most unforgiving division. Read the rest of this entry »

Red Sox closer Andrew Bailey will get a second opinion on his injured right thumb in Cleveland Tuesday from Dr. Thomas Graham, the hand specialist who performed surgery on both Kevin Youkilis and Jarrod Saltalamacchia in 2010. If Bailey lands on the DL to start the year, the Sox do have some in-house alternatives at closer. Who do you think should close for the team if/when Bailey is sidelined?

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FORT MYERS, Fla. — The arrival was treated with enthusiasm and curiosity by Terry Francona‘s former players. Dustin Pedroia chastised his former cribbage partner for talking to the media “now that you’re one of them.” David Ortiz stopped in for a hug. Darnell McDonald likewise wanted to see Francona, the man who gave him his most meaningful big league opportunity.

This is Francona’s new job. He is an analyst for ESPN, and so he is making the rounds among big league ballparks for broadcasts. But his arrival in the city where he spent the previous eight springs as Red Sox manager was…different.

“If I sat here and said, ‘Yeah, this is just another day at the office,’ that wouldn’t be true,” said Francona. “I’m excited to do the game, but I’ll be a little glad when the day is over. It’s a little awkward for me.”

That is in part because his Red Sox experience remains something of an emotional tangle, something that became clear when Francona was asked if he would consider returning to Fenway Park if asked for the celebration of the ballpark’s 100th anniversary. Read the rest of this entry »

Red Sox GM Ben Cherington (AP)

Red Sox GM Ben Cherington joined the WEEI broadcast of Saturday’s game at JetBlue Park between the Sox and Orioles to discuss a number of topics. Among them, he touched on the state of the competition for the spots at the back of the Red Sox rotation; the outlook for a number of players returning from injury, including Carl Crawford, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Rich Hill; and his evolving relationship with manager Bobby Valentine.

In examining the composition of his club, Cherington suggested that while a great deal of attention will be placed on the team’s Opening Day roster, the more significant matter facing the Sox is how they are constructed to handle the longer haul of the season given the inevitability of frequent roster changes.

“So much is made of the Opening Day roster, for good reason,” said Cherington. “You certainly want to go into the season feeling good about the 25-man roster, but it changes so quickly once you get into April that what we’re looking to do mostly is put together the best team and best depth we can for six months and not get too narrowly focused on April 5th.”

Speaking specifically of the team’s pitching depth, Cherington suggested that the team has been pleased by the early signs from the six pitchers competing for two starting spots at the back of the rotation (Daniel Bard, Alfredo Aceves, Vicente Padilla, Felix Doubront, Andrew Miller, Aaron Cook) as well as the pitchers beyond that group. He cited right-handers Doug Mathis, Justin Germano and Clayton Mortensen, along with rehabbing pitchers Daisuke Matsuzaka and Rich Hill, in discussing how the team appears to be situated for the longer haul of the season.

“The pitching staff on Opening Day, it’s very unlikely to look the same two weeks later, three weeks later, six weeks later certainly,” said Cherington. “We feel like we have some good depth there, guys capable of getting major league hitters out.”

Highlights of the interview are below. To hear Cherington’s complete on-air segment, click here. Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel Bard took his lumps in his appearance against the Cardinals on Thursday. (AP)

As seamless as Daniel Bard‘s transition to the rotation has seemed at times this spring, it has not been without practical challenges. That notion was underscored on Thursday, when Bard got shelled for the first time this spring, allowing seven runs on six hits and four walks in just 2 2/3 innings. He walked one.

Bard had never before allowed more than five runs in a game at the big league level, including his spring outings. And so, after he was hit as in no other game since establishing his credentials at the game’s highest levels, even after an exhibition outing, the development was unexpected and raised questions about where Bard is in his transition to the rotation.

That said, there were unique circumstances that made it possible to view Bard’s outing as an isolated event in spring training. Bard has been working to figure out a starter’s routine. That being the case, he readied for Thursday’s outing in the same fashion that he had prepared for his previous two starts, in which he pitched five shutout innings.

However, unlike the other two outings, in which he started, Bard came on in the sixth inning on Thursday, after Alfredo Aceves and Justin Thomas had pitched. Then, after he pitched to one batter (a groundout by Carlos Beltran), there was a brief rain delay. The net effect was that Bard was not in the same state of mind for Thursday’s outing than he had been for his previous starts.

“It was weird because I was trying to treat it like a start, yet I did my stuff in the training room like I did before my other starts. But then I go out and sit in the bullpen for three, four, five innings. I couldn’t really use the whole routine that I’ve tried to establish,” Bard acknowledged to reporters. “You get that one pitch to the hitter in the rain and then it was inevitable the [delay] was going to happen.

“You’re straight killing time back there behind the dugout. I probably if anything I lost that adrenaline that keeps you going out there and keeps you aggressive. I just felt kind of dead the rest of the inning. It’s not an excuse. It wasn’t the same conviction behind the pitches that needs to be there.”

When Bard returned to the mound following the delay, he gave up a solo homer to Matt Adams, the first of three runs (on four hits and two walks) he would allow that inning. After a 1-2-3 seventh, Bard walked the leadoff man in the eighth, retired the next two batters and then allowed a single, steal, walk and bases-loaded triple before being lifted.

Read the rest of this entry »