The Green Monster at JetBlue Park will remind fans of Fenway Park.

– The complex, with the 11,000-seat park sitting as the crown jewel, will open for games on March 3 when the team hosts Northeastern and Boston College in a day-night doubleheader.

– The ballpark offers some elements familiar at Fenway Park, including a left-field wall with similar dimensions to the Green Monster in the team’s home ballpark in Boston, a triangle in right-center field and a right-field fence that angles back steeply from the foul pole. The scoreboard on the left-field wall is a restored version of the actual manual scoreboard that was used at Fenway Park from 1976 until the middle of last decade.

– The left-field fence has an interesting wrinkle. A few feet above the scoreboard, there is a net in front of 258 seats that are “inside” the wall. Balls hit off the net remain in play. In order to be a home run, the ball must be hit a few more feet above the net. There is a “Monster Deck” atop the left field wall, from which spectators can see both the ballpark and the six practice fields behind it.

– Field 1 identically replicates the dimensions of the playing field at Fenway, including the curvature and heights of the various walls.

– A familiar ensemble of retired numbers is on display in right field: No. 9 (Ted Williams), No. 4 (Joe Cronin), No. 1 (Bobby Doerr), No. 8 (Carl Yastrzemski), No. 27 (Carlton Fisk), No. 6 (Johnny Pesky), No. 14 (Jim Rice) and No. 42 (Jackie Robinson).

Dustin Pedroia has his sights on 'the moon' in 2012. (AP)

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Dustin Pedroia is ready.

The second baseman in his sixth year with the Red Sox is ready for a new outlook, new manager and new feel in 2012.

And he’s come up with a new catch-phase.

On his way out Wednesday, Pedroia, who spent seven hours shooting a Sullivan Tire commercial Tuesday, said he was on a mission.

“Heading out to hit cage bombs, going to the moon,” Pedroia said.

What was his offseason training like?

“I was trying to straight body build, man,” he said without cracking a smile. “That’s basically it, and hit cage bombs.”

Before that, he spent several minutes talking about why he feels good coming into this season.

“We’re going to play good baseball,” Pedroia said of the fundamental approach of new skipper Bobby Valentine. “I’m excited, I’m excited to go play. Last year, the end was tough but we have to regroup together, come out and play good baseball and do it all year long.”

As for Valentine, Pedroia knows he must get accustomed to a new message coming from the manager’s office. He’s ready to start getting a feel for the specifics.

“I’ve been here a day and a half and met him a couple of times but we’ll find out more once camp goes,” Pedroia said. “From what I hear, he’s thinking about baseball non-stop and thinking about fundamentals and trying to get this team where this team needs to be.

“Play the game the right way. That’s basically it. I don’t have answers for what went on last year. Last year is over. It was tough. There’s not a day that goes by I don’t think about it. You have to try and turn the page and come out and play well and play for your teammates. That’s what I’m going to try and do.”

Pedroia knows Valentine will have a different approach than Terry Francona, the manager he would play cribbage and cards with before games.

“It’s different,” Pedroia said. “That’s the only thing I’ve kind of known. Things change. It’s tough to see [Francona] go, especially the way that it ended for us last year. He’ll always be a close friend of mine. Whatever he chooses to do going forward, I’m pulling for him.” Read the rest of this entry »

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Daniel Bard knows what he’s getting into. As matter of fact, he was adamant Tuesday, on the first day of workouts for pitchers and catchers, that he asked Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington last fall to give him a shot at earning a starter’s spot in the rotation.

“I spoke with Ben [Monday] and he just said, ‘Hey, we wouldn’t do this unless we really thought it would work.’ And I said, ‘I wouldn’t be doing it if didn’t think it would work.’ I’m all in,” Bard said at the picnic bench outside the Red Sox clubhouse. “I’m committed to it and I think they are, too.

“I’m really excited about it. I think it’s a great opportunity for me. It’s something I asked for. Ben was very receptive. This was before Pap had even left. I brought it up to the team. They were very receptive. Then when Pap left, I figured they would kind of forget it ever happened and just move on because they wouldn’t want to lose both of us from the bullpen. Ben called me shortly after that and said, ‘We want to ride this through and see if we can get some bullpen arms.’ He was able to do that with [Andrew Bailey] and [Mark Melancon] and it opened the door for me to do this.”

Bard’s pitching coach Bob McClure is no stranger to this transition. He did it when he was with the Brewers in the 1983 and ’84.

“McClure had done it back in the day,” Bard said. “He’s offered me some good advice. He had done it with a couple of his pitchers in Kansas City. [Justin Masterson] has done it, talked to Masty this offseason. We were catching up on the phone and he was excited for me about it. It’s more just believing in yourself.”

McClure told our Alex Speier he certainly believes Bard can make the transition from flame-throwing set-up man to starter.

“Can a guy repeat this type of delivery? Daniel’s is very simple. My guess is yes,” said McClure. “Whether he can start, I don’t know. It’s a whole different gig. But can he repeat what he’s doing 100 times, 120 times, 130 times? I believe he can.

“It’s a very simple, simple delivery. At first look, can he repeat his delivery where he can get the ball down there where he wants to throw it? I would think he can because his delivery is so simple.”

The origins of Bard returning to his roots as a starter came right after the heartbreaking end to the 2011 season.

“I think it was early November or late October,” Bard recalled. “It was kind of just brought up. I mentioned it to my agent and he had some talks with Ben. And they went from there. Ben called me to see what my thoughts were and hear it straight form me. It just kind of progressed. I think it was kind of set in stone when I spoke to Bobby when he was hired. Our first conversation [he said], ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to start or close. I think I can do either one really well. Whatever you guys think will help the team more.’

“Turns out, they think starting is the way to go.” Read the rest of this entry »

Cody Ross gets his batting practice rips in Tuesday with the Red Sox. (Mike Petraglia, WEEI.com)

FORT MYERS — Of all the new faces on the Red Sox this spring, there’s probably no one who can relate more with what happened to the Red Sox last September than Cody Ross.

While the Red Sox were slumping in September, Ross was on a Giants team that was at least expected to make it back to the playoffs to defend their 2010 World Series title. They faded and missed the playoffs completely.

“To be quite honest, I really didn’t realize it all that much because we were going through so [many] struggles ourselves,” Ross said Tuesday morning in his new digs in the Red Sox clubhouse. “To have a team win the World Series and come back and not even make the playoffs, that’s terrible. So, I was trying to focus on that. I really didn’t know what was going on until after the offseason and then I was like, ‘Wow, it was quite a slide.’

“Them and the Braves had similar slides going down the stretch. It definitely didn’t affect my decision, thinking I don’t know if I want to play for that team. I want to be on a team where I knew everybody in here wants to go to that next level and go to the playoffs.”

Looking to fill the void in right field after J.D. Drew left and while Ryan Kalish continues to heal from neck surgery, the Red Sox signed 31-year-old right-handed bat on Jan. 23 to a one-year, $3 million deal. He’ll battle with Ryan Sweeney and Kalish for playing time in right.

“I knew with the changes they’ve made they’re trying to get a different feel and a different look,” Ross said. “I felt like I’d be a perfect fit coming in, maybe bring a little different energy or whatever you have. It definitely played a role.”

Sweeney thinks his experience playing right field at AT&T Park in San Francisco last year will come in handy.

“Coming from San Francisco, that’s probably one of the most challenging right fields in all of baseball,” he said. “Here it’s tough as well. But it’s just something you have to get used to. I’ll be out there early every day, getting used to the dimensions and the wall. Just something you get used to.”

Ross had the reputation as a versatile outfielder when he was claimed in late Aug. 2010 off waivers to merely block a similar attempt by the Padres, who at the time were leading the NL West. Read the rest of this entry »

Carl Crawford spoke his mind on Monday morning inside the Red Sox clubhouse. (Mike Petraglia, WEEI.com)

FORT MYERS — Carl Crawford showed off the scars from his offseason surgery on his left wrist to reporters, two small circles – one on the outside and another on the top.

Crawford made a bold prediction of sorts Monday, telling everyone standing at his locker inside the Red Sox clubhouse that he thinks he can be ready for Opening Day April 5 in Detroit.

“In my mind, I think the odds are good because I definitely don’t want to miss any games. That’s my goal right now, to make it for opening day,” Crawford said.

“I don’t exactly know when it will be all the way healthy, but, right now, it definitely feels better than it was and I’m going to continue to build the strength up.”

The scars from what Red Sox owner John Henry said in October about him might be a lot harder to heal.

Sporting his typical good-natured smile and relaxed temperament, Crawford acknowledged Monday in his first spring training media session that he was stunned and upset with the offseason comments from Henry that he didn’t want Crawford in Boston when he was a free agent following the 2010 season. The outfielder was subsequently signed to a seven-year, $142 million contract by then-general manager Theo Epstein before the 2011 season.

“I can’t do nothing about what he said,” Crawford said. “I can just go out and play. It was unfortunate that he feels that way but there’s nothing for me to say to him but go out and play.”

Crawford was asked if he were surprised that the owner would come out and publicly acknowedge those feelings.

“I wasn’t happy about it,” Crawford said. “I was a little surprised to hear the comments but like I said, it’s unfortunate he feels that way. I just wish those words hadn’t come out.”

Crawford hit .155 in his first month in a Red Sox uniform, was dropped to seventh in the batting order by Terry Francona and never seemed to recover. He did manage to hit .255 in 506 at-bats, with 11 homers and 56 RBIs, with an OPS of .694.

“It will definitely be a key factor and one of the reasons why I’m here and motivated. It’s definitely going to motivate me to play well this year. I don’t even want to think about last year too much because it was so bad I don’t think there’s nothing you can do this year to make up for it. So, you just have to forget about it and go out and play hard and hope to do well this year.”

Crawford was asked about the clubhouse chemistry after last September. He quickly turned it into one of the funnier moments of his 15-minute session with reporters. Read the rest of this entry »

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Whether or not Jason Varitek reports to camp this spring with the Red Sox, the leadership of the pitching staff will fall directly on the shoulders of Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

And Friday afternoon, after a grueling day of work in the burning sun that baked both of his forearms, Saltalamacchia said he doesn’t feel any added pressure after “The Collapse” from last September.

“I don’t feel any added pressure, no, because we’re going to have to do it together,” Saltalamacchia said. “When I mean leader, I’m not going to have a ‘C’ on my chest, I’m not going to tell people what to do. But I’m going to go about my business the right way, lead by example a little bit on that front, and get to know the pitchers, get to know them a little more and find out what we can do.”

Saltalamacchia said he’s gotten a head start on the season by speaking with new pitching coach Bob McClure.

“I spoke with Bob, and he’s been great as far as the pitching side of it and getting feedback from him has been great,” Saltalamacchia said.

“I don’t think last year there was any kind of [lack of] leadership. We all knew what to do. You’re with a team that’s been there, done that. Guys with two rings, guys with one so we knew what we had to do. I think we might have put a little added pressure on ourselves and that’s where we faltered.”

Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis had an RBI double in his first at-bat of the 2011 season. (AP)

ARLINGTON, Texas — One can make the case that no Red Sox player had a worse spring than Kevin Youkilis. At least, that would be the easy conclusion to draw from the numbers.

Youkilis — one of the top hitters in the American League over the past three years — amassed dreadful numbers in Grapefruit League play. He hit .175 with a .238 OBP and .211 slugging mark, walking just four times while punching out 15 times in 57 at-bats in big league exhibition games.

Was Youkilis concerned before leaving Fort Myers, perhaps wondering whether he was rusty after surgery to repair a torn adductor muscle in his hand cost him the final two months of last year? Hardly.

There were a few reasons for his cavalier attitude. First, those numbers didn’t include an exhibition game against Northeastern, when he hit a homer, or a minor league camp game against John Lackey and other Sox pitchers at the end of spring training, when Youkilis felt like his swing got locked in as he drove the ball to center and right. Secondly, he felt that he was victimized on a number of strikeouts by bad calls. Third, he noted that he is of a mind that the perfect outcome in spring games is a good, hard lineout.

“Spring training is a tough gauge,” said Youkilis. “Me, personally, I like getting out, lining out in spring training. The old saying, they’ll even out, I feel like they’ll fall more in the year. You want to hit line drives right at people, go right back to the dugout, conserve your energy for the year. I don’t get as mad [in spring training] as I do during the season.]”

Finally, there was an issue of approach. Youkilis, and perhaps most significantly, there was the matter of approach. Youkilis takes a different approach to his plate appearances in spring training than he does during the regular season. The third baseman is more concerned with process than results in spring. He acknowledged that he would rather get rung up on a called third strike during the spring than crush a first-pitch fastball.

“I’m not a big fan of feeling hot. I don’t want to be swinging well the whole spring training, because then you don’t get a sense of when you’re going bad, how to change it,” said Youkilis. “There’s two sides to it. Some guys need the confidence and reinforcement that they’re doing well. But sometimes that’s a false sense of how you are.

“I can go out and swing at a first-pitch fastball down the middle, but that’s not going to do anything to figure out when a guy is throwing two-seamer in, curveball, slider. Swing at the first pitch, you get a good result. But in spring training, I try to see as many pitches as possible. I want to see the really good pitches: the changeups, the sliders, the curveballs. I want to see every kind of pitch. So when you get to the season, you’re used to seeing it. That’s one of the misconceptions about spring training. Just because a guy hits .400 in spring training doesn’t mean he’s going to have a real good year. Just because a guy hits bad in spring training doesn’t mean he’s going to hit bad during the year.”

It took all of three regular season pitches for Youkilis to give a sense of why he feels that way. He stepped to the plate in the top of the first inning of Opening Day against the Rangers with a runner on third and two outs and promptly laced a 92 mph fastball from starter C.J. Wilson on a 1-1 count into the right field corner for a run-scoring double. He then scored on an RBI single by Adrian Gonzalez.

Thus began the start of games that count for the Sox third baseman.