FORT MYERS, Fla. — Mark Melancon brings a lot to the Red Sox bullpen.

He’s a hard thrower who has experience as a closer. He has played in the baseball’s most-famed rivalry as a member of the 2009 World Champion Yankees. He is articulate, quotable and well-liked everywhere he’s been.

“I got a taste of [winning] in New York and now I’m on the other side, which is just as exciting,” the 26-year-old right-handed Melancon said Thursday at the Red Sox new complex in Fort Myers. “I’m so excited. I’ve been on the other side for so long. It’s bickering back and forth and you hear the differences but you always have respect for your competition. Now I’m on the other side of the fence, which is the better side, so I’m looking forward to it.

“I have all respect for them,” Melancon said of the Yankees. “They’re first class. It’s very similar, actually, in how [both teams] go about things. Winning is a priority and that shows.”

And he can wrestle sharks better than anyone in the majors.

As part of his MLB trip to New Zealand in January to teach an MLB camp to kids, he caught some time with the “Great White” sharks in the ocean with his wife, Mary Catherine.

“Those Great Whites are pretty scary but with that said, it was really neat,” he said. “It was kind of a ‘bucket list’ thing but the whole reason I was down there was to teach camps for New Zealand kids who are just learning baseball. That was just a fabulous experience.

“That was totally me. My wife was right there with me. We had created [a bucket list] all through our relationship. For a wedding gift, she had it written out [in calligraphy] and framed. And one of those things was to go “Great White” shark diving. So, we can cross that off. Read the rest of this entry »

Astros manager Brad Mills says that Jed Lowrie will receive a 'clean slate' in Houston. (AP)

Astros manager Brad Mills is familiar with the rigors of the American League East from his six years as Red Sox bench coach. It is a division where the back-end bullpen options are not merely passable arms. Instead, it requires dominant stuff to handle the late-game responsibilities against the most ferocious ensemble of lineups of any division.

Mills is also familiar with reliever Mark Melancon, whom his club dealt to the Red Sox on Wednesday in exchange for both infielder Jed Lowrie and right-hander Kyle Weiland. Melancon emerged as the Astros closer in 2011, when Brandon Lyon went down with an injury early in the season. Melancon thrived in the role, recording 20 saves and posting a 2.78 ERA while pitching 74 1/3 innings in 71 appearances.

Given the perspective borne of his time with both the Astros and Red Sox, Mills suggested that he believes Melancon has the talent to succeed as a closer for the Red Sox.

“I’m not going to sit here and say he’s going to dominate when he hasn’t been there, but he has the stuff to do it. He’s going to come in there, in that situation, and give it everything he can to do it,” Mills said by phone on Wednesday. “Once he sees that his stuff can play, and it is good enough to do it, once he sees it, then he’ll take the ball and run with it.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox have agreed to a deal with the Astros for reliever Mark Melancon. (AP)

According to multiple industry sources, the Red Sox have traded right-hander Kyle Weiland and infielder Jed Lowrie to the Astros in exchange for right-handed reliever Mark Melancon. With the trade, the Sox acquire a pitcher who should pitch in the late innings — and someone with potentially untapped closer potential — in exchange for a pair of players with the ceiling of big league regulars (Lowrie as an everyday infielder, Weiland as either a back-of-the-rotation starter or, perhaps, a setup man) but whose roles for the 2012 Red Sox, and perhaps beyond, were limited.

Melancon pitched his first full season in 2011, putting up tremendous numbers out of the Astros bullpen. In 71 appearances, he went 8-4 with a 2.78 ERA, 66 strikeouts (8.0 per nine innings) and 26 walks (3.1 per nine) in 74 1/3 innings. He emerged as Houston’s closer in early May of last year and performed effectively in that role for the duration of the season, converting 20 of 23 save opportunities.

The 26-year-old has fewer than two years of big league service time, meaning that he is not yet arbitration eligible, and he won’t be eligible for free agency until after the 2016 season. The Red Sox thus acquire a back-end bullpen option, adding some critical depth at a time when the team is contemplating moving Alfredo Aceves and/or Daniel Bard from the bullpen to the rotation.

“Love him,” one talent evaluator said of Melancon. “Think he can close.”

It remains to be seen whether he will be asked to perform in that role for the Red Sox in 2012. Nonetheless, the team is sold on the right-hander’s combination of stuff and makeup, and certainly, there is a sense that he could be a fit for that role, and that he could fulfill the blueprint for finding a closer that Sox GM Ben Cherington laid out on the Mut & Merloni show earlier this month.

“The thing about closers, as you guys know, there’s very few that keep doing it at an elite level over a long, long period of time. There’s very few Mariano Riveras and Trevor Hoffmans out there. So, the key a lot of times is finding the guy at the right point in his career when he’s ready to sort of go on a run and do it,” said Cherington. “That’s our challenge moving forward. We feel like we have some internal options. We’ll continue to explore external options, both through trade and free agency. But it is a position that sometimes evolves from areas that you’re not even expecting. The Cardinals went into this season with Ryan Franklin as closer and I’m not even sure if he was in the ballpark when they won the World Series. It is a position that has turnover and is harder to predict, but it’s important and we know that for a team like this, as we go into the season, it’s important to have a closer defined. I’m not sure it’s important to have one next week or two weeks from now.” Read the rest of this entry »

DALLAS — It is the last night of the winter meetings in Dallas. A year ago, the Red Sox swore that things were going to remain quiet on the way out of the annual gathering in Orlando, only to reach agreement with Carl Crawford on his seven-year, $142 million contract hours after GM Theo Epstein suggested that he was putting the final touches on a relatively boring meetings.

This year, perhaps there will be another bolt from the blue. But certainly, GM Ben Cherington did not give that impression in his meeting with the media. Instead, he suggested that the past four days in Dallas have been more or less an information-gathering exercise that will lay the groundwork for future activity on the pitching front.

The details of his daily session with the media:

–David Ortiz and his agent, Fernando Cuza, have not told the Sox whether or not he will accept salary arbitration, despite numerous reports suggesting that the DH will do so. Reliever Dan Wheeler has informed the Sox that he will decline arbitration.

–Cherington said that the team has made some headway in terms of its understanding of the market for pitching, but said that, as expected, the winter meetings have been more of an exercise in information-gathering than acquisition.

“We’ve made progress, we’ve certainly made progress as far as understanding more what it’s going to take to acquire pitching of all sorts of flavors and I think we felt like that’s what this was going to be about for all of us. It was going to be more information gathering than execution, most likely, these days in Dallas,” said Cherington. “It’s been good in that regard. We’ve got a good feel for what’s out there, what it might take and we’ve just got to keep balancing the options and figure out one or more than one that makes sense. … We have a good sense of what’s out there and what it would it take to acquire pitching in all different varieties.” Read the rest of this entry »

Though the Red Sox beat up on the Rangers with an eight-run fourth inning in a 12-7, they found themselves a bit beat up by day’s end. Shortstop Jed Lowrie left in the fourth inning with left shoulder tightness, while outfielder Josh Reddick finished a 4-for-4 performance by leaving in the eighth inning after being hit by a pitch.

Manager Terry Francona gave updates on both players, and based on what he had to say, it doesn’t seem they expect either situation to be a major issue. Francona noted that though Lowrie had to come out of Saturday’s game, the shoulder issue is not serious, and that the team was just being careful with the infielder. Even so, the manager doesn’t expect to have Lowrie in Sunday’s lineup.

“Jed [was] just stiff, I think probably from a little bit of fatigue,” Francona said. “He’s played a lot. … I don’t think he’ll play tomorrow, [but] he’ll certainly be available. So we’re OK there. That might be me overreacting a little bit. I just don’t want to lose guys.”

Reddick had X-rays taken after leaving the game, but they came back negative. It’s uncertain whether he will play Sunday, but Francona did say that the plunking left a mark.

“[Reddick] got hit pretty good,” Francona said. “He was x-rayed, negative. He’s going to be a little sore tomorrow.”

Marco Scutaro

Shortstop Marco Scutaro will be held out of Boston’s game against the Rangers Saturday afternoon to get another day of rest. Scutaro sat out Friday’s series opener against the Rangers as well.

Jed Lowrie will get his second straight start at shortstop, batting sixth in place of Scutaro. Lowrie is 2-for-3 in his career against Rangers starter Colby Lewis. In his pre-game press conference Saturday, manager Terry Francona said he expects Scutaro will be back for the series finale on Sunday.

“I wanted to give him one more day,” Francona said. “We’ll play him tomorrow. I think these two days [of rest] will be really good for him… he’s a little beat up.”

The veteran shortstop missed five straight games in the middle of August with a sore back, but he had been back in the lineup since Aug. 20. Even with the season winding down, Francona insisted that he is not sitting players to be overly cautious with the post season looming.

“If they need it,” Francona said, referring to resting players in the stretch run. “Not if they don’t need it, but if they need it, it’s very important. We certainly try to keep an eye on them.”

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Red Sox utility infielder Mike Aviles will get just his second start at shortstop while in Boston during Tuesday’s opener of a doubleheader against the Rays. But the choice to start the 30-year-old seemingly has more to do with the other two shortstops on the Red Sox roster than it does with Aviles.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona said before Tuesday’s two-game set that Marco Scutaro will continue to sit with a stiff back, meaning he will miss three of the last four games at the least after the back injury caused him to be scratched last Friday against the Mariners.

Additionally, Francona said he would rather start Lowrie, who is hitting .373 against lefties this season, against Rays southpaw David Price on Wednesday than play him against righties James Shields and Jeff Niemann. Not to mention that Lowrie returned from the disabled list (shoulder) just last week and may need a breather of his own after going from not playing in 45 games to getting time in five of the last six games.

That left Aviles as the obvious choice to start Tuesday.

“Marco’s back is still stiff so there’s that,” Francona said. “We really want Jed to play against the lefty tomorrow so it’ll probably be two out of three for him. So that’s why we’re doing it. If someone’s going to play two, Mike is probably better suited to do it.”

Francona mentioned that the remedy for Scutaro’s back may simply be time, something the team and player didn’t have much of with the rare 1:05 start on a weekday.

“It’s an early day,” said the Sox skipper. “He’ll get treatment, and we’ll see how he’s doing later.”

UPDATE: Because David Ortiz was scratched due to illness at the last second, Lowrie found his way into the lineup anyways. He will be the team’s DH and hit eighth in the first game of the doubleheader.

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