J.D. Drew took a pitch off the right hand from Pirates Rule 5 draftee Donnie Veal in the bottom of the fifth inning, and after being lifted in favor of a pinch-runner, had to be taken for X-rays. The X-Rays came back negative, with the Sox offering the diagnosis of a contusion on the bottom of the right hand, just above where he held the knob of the bat.

“He just expressed that he wasn’t real thrilled with getting hit,” said bench coach Brad Mills, who served as manager today while Terry Francona traveled. “The way he talked, his actions, were hurt.”

The Sox are no doubt relieved by the diagnosis, since Drew has lost significant time in his career to hand and wrist injuries. With the Dodgers in 2005, he was sidelined for the final three months after his left wrist was broken by a Brad Halsey pitch. In 2001, he missed six weeks after his right little finger was broken by a David Wells pitch.

Drew’s replacement in the lineup, Bubba Bell, was also hit by a pitch on the outside of the right ankle. Though Bell left on crutches, X-rays were negative, and the outfielder expects to be fine.

–Bad day for Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon. Sort of. The good: the Red Sox closer struck out the side in the top of the sixth inning. The bad: he gave up two runs, three hits and a walk during the inning. Papelbon has a 5.14 ERA this spring.

More on Papelbon, whose hitting prowess was documented (sort of) in this story. I talked to his former Mississippi State teammate and close friend, Paul Maholm, a couple weeks ago, when the Sox were in Bradenton on March 9. At the time, Maholm had this to say about Papelbon:

“I really try to find whatever interview he does, and figure out what he could possibly say today. Whatever’s on his mind, there’s no filter. Nothing. He says what he’s thinking. The most entertaining (thing he did), I had to call and ask what the hell he was doing with the River Dance. Or last year, when he went to the All-Star Game (in New York) and said he should close over (Yankees closer) Mariano (Rivera)—not the smartest thing for him to say. But he’s fun.”

Three days later, Papelbon’s infamous remarks about Manny Ramirez were published in Esquire Magazine.

–Chip Ambres, on the other hand, enjoyed an impressive afternoon. He made a dazzling running catch at the wall in centerfield in the top of the seventh, then smashed a homer to left-center in the bottom of the inning. Ambres also made a tremendous leaping catch against the wall on Thursday in Sarasota.

The outfielder, who is with the Sox on a minor-league contract this spring, has a couple claims to fame. He was used as the key trade chip the Red Sox used to acquire Royals second baseman Tony Graffanino in 2005. More impressively: in high school, Ambres said that he was the top recruit in the state of Texas, just ahead of … Adam Dunn. Ambres had a commitment to play at Texas A&M, but signed with the Marlins two days before the start of classes.

–Jeremy Farrell, son of Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell, is in the game at third base for the Pirates. The right-handed batter lined to right in his only at-bat of the afternoon thus far.

JUPITER, Fla. — Thanks to the Associated Press’ Maureen Mullen, we have Jonathan Papelbon elaborating on the comments that are to be published in an Esquire Magazine article: 

“I’m not going to have very many [second thoughts] about what I say.”

(How bad it was last summer): “Here’s the thing, it’s pretty much simple to me and the writing’s on the wall because you have a guy who is on our team and we’re losing games and then, all of a sudden, this guy leaves and they bring in a new guy and we start winning the day he left. So it’s pretty obvious to me, to everybody else that was watching, what was going on, and you could see it.”

(Have you been through like that with another teammate?): “No, no, that’s the first time I’ve ever gone through something like that, especially a guy like that kind of caliber.”

(Do players look at it differently when it’s major players?): No, I think the bar is set for every big league baseball player. It’s just, it is what it is. When you have 25 guys on a team and one guy’s not  in the same page as the other 24 guys you have problems, and obviously we had our problems, and our front office fixed that and luckily he didn’t sink the ship.”

(Did guys try to deal with him?): “Well, I think some guys on our team that maybe could talk to him. Guys like me, I can’t talk no sense into him. I think there’s other guys on this team that had a better opportunity at that than me. But I think that went on. I don’t know.”

(On public statements): “I think that it’s the truth and I’m not afraid to speak the truth about anything. I mean everybody knows what happened. There’s no secrets here. So I’m not coming up with some new big hidden secret that nobody knows about. This is something everybody’s been knowing about it, and it is old news. But I know those comments just came out today from a magazine [interview] that I did in the first of December. But there’s no secrets here. The writing is on the wall.”

(Will teammates tell you not to say anything?): “No, because I think they all know that that’s the truth. If I said something that was out of line, then yeah. But I don’t think I said anything that’s out of line. I spoke the truth.”

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JUPITER, Fla. — Just got to Florida Atlantic University/Roger Dean Stadium/Home of the Marlins and Cardinals, straight from the airport. (Alex tagged me in and is heading out of town.)

Thanks to MLB.com’s Ian Browne, I didn’t miss anything because he gave me the transcript from Terry Francona prior to the Red Sox’ tilt with St. Louis:

- David Ortiz got into Fort Myers at about 10 p.m. last night, and Jason Bay sent Francona a text saying he would be in the house today. As was evidenced by Alex’s interviews with both on his way out of town, I would say the skipper was right on the money.

- Regarding if Francona was happy with the amount of at-bats each player received at the World Baseball Classic: “I think David got 15. Bay probably got the same. We’ve been keeping them just like if they were in camp, like, up on a board. They’re kind of following it right, just not the way we would spread it out.”

- As for some of the other WBC participants, Francona reminded that Javy Lopez pitched an inning Wednesday night, and Daisuke Matsuzaka threw a 50-pitch side session yesterday. Matsuzaka will pitch Sunday for Japan.

- Regarding Jonathan Papelbon’s comments on Manny Ramirez in Esquire Magazine: “From my point of view, and again, you guys know me well enough, if I ever have something to say to a player I’ll say it to him in my office … It just doesn’t ever make sense for me to talk about stuff like that. As an organization, we do what we think is right for our team and we did that. We’ll continue to do that.

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The Red Sox made a few minor moves this morning, making their first three cuts of the spring. Shortstop Argenis Diaz was optioned to Double-A Portland, while catcher Carlos Maldonado and pitcher Charlie Zink were both re-assigned to minor-league camp. Diaz, considered a potentially dazzling defender, made some errors on routine plays this spring and may have taken those struggles with him to the plate (he hit .077, going 1-for-13).

Defense, of course, is his hallmark. The Sox are intrigued to know whether he can offer enough offensive production to allow him to develop into more than a potential role player. Read the rest of this entry »

After an off-day on Wednesday created utter quiet in Fort Myers, Thursday brought a different kind of soundtrack. The Red Sox played Team Puerto Rico in its World Baseball Classic tuneup, a contest that resulted in a rare influx of percussion and choreographed team chants at the park. The atmosphere offered a reminder of the diverse international cultures surrounding the game, and a good reason why the WBC is a unique and worthwhile event.

Five other things we learned on a busy Thursday in Fort Myers:

–The Red Sox enjoyed relatively promising news on the health front, with J.D. Drew taking batting practice in preparation for his return to games on Friday, Mike Lowell likely to return to game activity in roughly a week, Brad Penny having promising flat-ground sessions as he tries to ready for a regular-season start on April 12, and signs that John Smoltz might be able to nudge the date of his return slightly forward. All of this hakuna matata, of course, came on a day when Alex Rodriguez‘ torn hip labrum threatens to sabotage his season.

–Manny Ramirez believes that, in the end, he “won” the eight-year battle with life in Boston as a Red Sox. Ron Burgundy would do well to counsel Manny to stay classy.

–Clay Buchholz continues to offer impressive markers of greater maturity on the mound. His ability to minimize damage after getting in a couple of jams on Thursday was noteworthy, something that the pitcher said he would have been unable to accomplish last year.

–Jonathan Papelbon wants to give hitters more to think about when they face him. If his slider becomes an effective weapon, good luck, hitters. Worth noting: Papelbon is one of just four pitchers with at least 150 career innings and a sub-2.00 ERA. Also on the list: teammate Takashi Saito, who pitches today.

–Daniel Bard can throw really, really hard. The operative word that you hear about seven times every outing is “effortless.” One scout rebutted the contention that he hit 100 yesterday, suggesting that Bard hit “only” 99. Nonetheless, that scout — and everyone else in attendance at City of Palms Park for the pitcher’s two shutout innings — was dazzled.

Jonathan Papelbon put in a brief and relatively uneventful inning of work. He entered in the fifth inning of the exhibition game against Team Puerto Rico, made quick work of his three outs and was ready to head home.

But there was a noteworthy event within that brief appearance. Early in the at-bat against Puerto Rico outfielder Alex Rios, he snapped off a slider. The right-handed Rios swung and missed. There was another slider on which Papelbon got a called strike. As such, Papelbon could take satisfaction in a productive shutout inning of work.

“I was going to go out there and throw my slider more. I was able to do that,” said Papelbon. “For me, that’s going to be huge, obviously, for down the road, incorporating that pitch in my game. … It’s another pitch I’m going to start to throw more as spring goes on, and start to throw more this season.”

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A year ago, Joe Nathan questioned Jonathan Papelbon’s assertion that the Red Sox closer should start setting the standard for closers, telling our man Alex Speier in March, 2008: 

“(Papelbon) is still a little young to be worried about that,” said Twins closer Joe Nathan, who signed a four-year, $47 million extension with a team option, during last season’s spring training. “He’s coming into his third year of closing. He’s got some time before he has to worry about the young guys behind him.

“(Papelbon) IS a young guy right now. I think it’s more important for us to set the bar for him at this stage of the game.”

Now, after Papelbon inked the best deal for any first-time arbitration-eligible pitcher, for one year at $6.25 million Nathan can see that the Sox reliever is, indeed helping the closers’ cause:

“For him to make that amount of money that early in his career, it shows that hopefully the market continue to do what it has done for that position, which is increase,” said Nathan before Sunday’s Twins-Red Sox tilt at Hammond Stadium. “With the economy, it probably slowed down signings this year a little bit. But it’s still moving in the right direction. I think Papelbon is going to one of the guys who will definitely help it out. What he’s been able to do over there at an early age, and an early stage in his career, I hope he goes through his career without any adversity. If he does have some adversity, which 100 percent of guys I know do, I hope he is able to fight through those things and get to the point he has been.”

Nathan surmised that, in this economy, was the fact that Papelbon was negotiating as a player who was working within the confines of the arbitration system.

“One thing that was in his advantage was that he had an arbitration case. As a free agent, sure there are other teams that the organization has to compete with but it is still up to the market. With arbitration it’s you and the club. They knew based on his numbers where it was going. It wasn’t based on the economy or who was going to pay him. I think that was a pretty good bargaining tool, and that’s one of the reason why we have those arbitration cases, to have that bargaining power your side.”