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 »

With Tim Wakefield retiring, will jason Varitek follow suit? (AP)

FORT MYERS – Jason Varitek was not at JetBlue Park on Friday as Tim Wakefield announced his retirement. But the future of the longtime Red Sox captain remained very much a part of the proceedings.

Just as they did for Wakefield, the Sox have offered Varitek a minor league contract with an invitation to come to big league camp and compete for a roster spot. Just as was the case for Wakefield, the Sox are allowing a longtime franchise cornerstone the space to make his own decision about his future.

“We told him that there was an opportunity to come to camp, and gave him, as we did to Tim, gave him as much of the landscape as we could in terms of what that would mean. … We felt like they had earned that, to be given some sort of stake in the decision and we’ve tried to give them as much information as we can,” said Sox GM Ben Cherington. “[It is] a unique situation, to put that in a player’s court and not normally what we do. In these two particular cases, we felt that there was merit to doing it that way because of what the players meant to the team.”

Cherington said that at this point, with pitchers and catchers due to report on Sunday, he is not expecting any additions to the roster. However, the decision will ultimately be Varitek’s as to what to do with his career. Wakefield said that he has talked with his teammate of 15 seasons this offseason, but that it is impossible for him to use his own situation to make any assessments about what is right for Varitek. Read the rest of this entry »

Yankees GM Brian Cashman called Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis his favorite player to watch. (AP)

RANDOLPH, Vermont — One of the most interesting exchanges of the Batting for Vermont roundtable came when the four participants in the panel were asked to identify their favorite players to watch from another team.

For Pirates GM Neal Huntington, it was Albert Pujols – the simple, direct, ferocious approach and the ability to murder a baseball no matter where it is in the strike zone.

Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein identified Phillies ace Roy Halladay, knowing the relentless preparation that goes into each outing, knowing the different ways he can carve up the strike zone, seeing the ability to dominate time after time on the mound.

Red Sox pro scout Galen Carr suggested that for him, it was Yankees captain Derek Jeter, given the “conviction in his actions, an unyielding belief in his abilities to get the job done and to succeed and to lead his team to a victory.”

Yankees GM Brian Cashman likewise looked across his AL East rivalry and identified a player who is perhaps less glamorous than the other three who were mentioned.

“Kevin Youkilis probably. He really grinds out an at-bat and just kills you. He is so determined,” said Cashman. “You can pitch him in. You can hit him. Whatever. He just gets back in there and it’s sheer determination. It’s never a comfortable at-bat when you’re watching this guy try to do damage against your pitchers. He just finds a way to do it. I appreciate watching how he goes about his business and just how tenacious he is. A lot of these guys are very controlled in this sport, unlike football. But he’s got a tenaciousness that just oozes right through his bat, right there at the plate, and it’s pretty special to watch.”

Dustin Pedroia suggested that he was upset by the portrayals of the Red Sox clubhouse as dysfunctional. (AP)

Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia interrupted his vacation in Mexico to call into the Big Show and discuss the Boston Globe article that portrayed the Sox clubhouse as an environment rife with dysfunction, in which teammates lapsed into apathy about the performance of the club as the season slowly drifted away.

Pedroia took issue with the characterization of the Sox clubhouse, suggesting that it featured numerous leaders, and pointing the fault for the team’s epic collapse to poor play on the field.

Pedroia suggested that he was “upset” about the portrayal of the clubhouse, and that he was “[hurt]” by the suggestion that manager Terry Francona‘s job had been compromised by personal problems.

That said, Pedroia vowed to put behind him the brutal disappointment of the end of the season. He suggested that he wants to remain in Boston for the duration of his career even with the departure of Francona, and he said that the team would feature renewed resolve entering 2012.

“We’ll come back motivated, I promise you guys,” said Pedroia.

To listen to the complete interview, click here. A transcript of the conversation is below:

On the Boston Globe article on Red Sox clubhouse dysfunction:

I’m pretty upset about it. A lot of the stuff that was said was pretty much not fair. It hurts, man. It’s not good.

What’s true?

We’re all baseball players. I showed up to work every day ready to beat the other team. So did everyone else. We’re a family. We had the best record in baseball up until Sept. whatever, and then we ran out of gas. That doesn’t have anything to do with Tito or Theo or any players or what went on in the clubhouse. The leadership was there. We had guys that cared. We didn’t play well in the end. That’s it. Read the rest of this entry »

Red Sox fans have seen this movie before.

An ace pitcher is cruising along against the vaunted Yankee lineup, like Jon Lester was on Friday night. The Sox left had allowed just two hits in five scoreless innings, throwing just 73 pitches in the process.

Then, boom. All of sudden, the Yankees start taking pitches, fouling off pitcher’s pitches and making every swing count. The Yankees still work the pitcher as well as any team in baseball and they proved it again Friday night, trailing 2-0.

Even the best pitchers the Red Sox ever had – like Pedro Martinez, circa 1999 – have fallen victim to this in the last 15 years that Derek Jeter has been a captain. And Jeter was at the middle of things – or more to the point – the start of things on Friday night.

Eduardo Nunez fell behind quickly two strikes to open the sixth, with the Lester and the Red Sox in command, 2-0. Then six pitches – including two foul balls – later, he was on base with a walk. Jeter singled and Curtis Granderson followed with an RBI single to left-center and it was 2-1.

“Just really lost command,” Lester said. “You have to tip your cap to them. They did a good job being patient that inning. I threw some pretty good pitches they laid off, whether it was a ball or strike, they stayed within themselves and it seemed like the first five innings, we dictated both sides of the plate and in the sixth inning, they did.”

Lester would throw his final 35 pitches of the night in that sixth inning as the Yankees rallied for three runs off Lester.

“The first thing was Nunez’s at-bat, the fact that he was able a 3-2 walk after fouling off some really tough pitches,” Granderson said. “I think he threw pretty anything and everything at him. Derek got his first hit of the ball game, I got my first hit. Nunez read it really well and was able to score.” Read the rest of this entry »

Former Red Sox star Nomar Garciaparra checked in with the Mut & Merloni show Friday afternoon to talk about the Red Sox and news around Major League Baseball. To hear the interview, go to the Mut & Merloni audio on demand page.

Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter skipped the All-Star Game and received some criticism when he was spotted with his fiancee in Miami. Jeter had recorded his 3,000th hit over the weekend, shortly after coming off the disabled list, and opted for the rest instead.

“I didn’t have a problem with it,” Garciaparra said. “I understood. It’s hard, because as a player, you’re caught in between. You’ve got to worry about the second half. He’s coming off an injury.”

Garciaparra said the All-Star Game is “a huge honor,” but the schedule is so tight that it can be a problem for a player with an injury. “There’s really no time for you to get treatment,” he said, adding: “I don’t think people really understand that the environment is not there for you to really get ready like you do normally during the season.”

Garciaparra said he’s one of those who does not like having the All-Star Game determine home-field advantage in the World Series. “I never liked it to begin with,” he said.

Touching on David Ortiz‘ future in Boston, Garciaparra was asked if he expected to see Ortiz eventually play elsewhere.

“I really don’t, but then again you’re asking the wrong guy. I thought the same thing about myself,” Garciaparra said with a laugh.

Peter Gammons

MLB and NESN analyst Peter Gammons joined the Mut & Merloni show Thursday to talk about the Roger Clemens mistrial, the All-Star Game and the latest with the Red Sox. To hear the interview, go to the Mut & Merloni audio on demand page.

“They are worrying more about steroids than they are about drunk drivers killing people,” Gammons said about the government and the Clemens trial. “It’s our tax dollars at work.”

He said he is surprised with Thursday’s developments that the trial has been declared a mistrial.

“I think it was a major surprise,” Gammons said. “A friend of mine who had been covering it, sent me an email saying the prosecution just blew its self up. They did a terrible job with it. It’s amazing. Rusty Hardin didn’t even need to pull the guns out, he was ready to go after Andy Pettitte and all sorts of people.”

Added Gammons: “A lot of people seeing Clemens and [Barry] Bonds get hung on all this, but just go, ‘All right, enough is enough, let’s move on.’ I sense that they had done that in San Francisco. I thought this trial would be a salacious and vicious trial. The fact that they were bringing Pettitte into it and the fact the prosecutors screwed it up on day one. You would laugh if they didn’t realize how much money they spent on this.”

Gammons also discussed the All-Star Game and how many people within the game were upset with players leaving the game early, or not showing up at all.

“It was bad for the game,” Gammons said. “I know the commissioner’s office was pretty upset with the way all this went down. So many players were out of there by the eighth inning and on their planes going home. I think most people, I know Bud [Selig]  is upset about it and he should be, were left with the impression it doesn’t really matter.

“That is a tough thing for baseball to overcome. I am told that there were some words between the commissioner’s office and the players association, that the players association is supposed to think everybody was hurt, but at the same time it did have that impression of, ‘OK, lets get this over with and see what happens.’ ”

Read the rest of this entry »