Papelbon approves of move

Hours before completing their trade Tuesday for Eric Gagne, the Red Sox took the highly unusual step of summoning incumbent closer Jonathan Papelbon to Fenway Park for a meeting with general manager Theo Epstein and manager Terry Francona to explain the prospective deal to Papelbon, solicit his input, and assure him that it would not adversely impact his role with the club.

Epstein later called Papelbon off the field during batting practice to inform him that the deal had been completed.

"They came to me and said, 'This is what we got going on, we don't want to go behind your back,' " Papelbon said. "Theo and Tito came to me in a respectful way and said, 'Hey, Pap, this is what's going on, we want to be 100 percent fair with you.'

"You don't see that in baseball today, and only in our clubhouse do you see that. You don't see that with the Yankees, the Orioles, Tampa Bay. I guarantee there were 100 trades that went on, not only in the big leagues but in the minor leagues, where they didn't go to the guy to tell them what was going on. The respect issue, that was a huge thing for me."

Papelbon, after expressing reservations at the first meeting -- "At first, it didn't really go well," he said. "I'm going, 'Wait a minute, what's going on here?' " -- enthusiastically endorsed the deal and greeted Gagne warmly when he arrived in the clubhouse yesterday.

"It's a situation where we're going to feed off each other," Papelbon said. "He came in here today, I said, 'All right, baby, you're the one, let's do this.' He said, 'That's why I came here.' He wants to go out to prove to everybody that he was the last link in the chain for us to go out and win a World Series."

The Red Sox are paying Gagne more than $4 million -- the roughly $2 million remaining on his $6 million base salary, plus an additional $2.1 million to get him to waive his no-trade clause and compensate for performance bonuses he will be unable to earn in Boston -- to set up for Papelbon, who as closer is being paid $425,000 this season.

Even so, Papelbon said, he does not believe it is necessary for the club to address his salary situation at this time. Papelbon began the season with a little more than one year of big league service (1 year, 64 days) and thus did not have any salary leverage.

"I think they want to see what I'm capable of still," Papelbon said hours before closing out last night's 5-4 victory over the Orioles. "There are a lot of questions I have to answer, not only for them but for me personally. I want to answer the question, 'Can I make it through a full season as a closer and stay healthy?' For me, I want to be able to go out there and do my shoulder program. I want to answer questions like, how am I going to react when I'm not feeling good, will I still be able to pitch?

"I'm not thinking about getting a contract locked up. We've got something we need to accomplish this year. I've always been the type of person who is a huge believer in, you get what you deserve, you've got to pay your dues. You can't be the CEO your first month on the job. You've got to put in your work, prove you belong and deserve it."

Papelbon said he was deeply appreciative of Sox management including him in the process of acquiring Gagne, and looks at the addition of Gagne as nothing but a positive for him, especially from a health standpoint.

"They saw how I stepped up in the spring [and asked to close again with the Sox desperate for a closer], so they told me what was going on and asked my opinion, so to speak," Papelbon said. "There was no question I wanted him to come here, no question whatsoever. It was just a matter of finding out a way to keep me a closer and bring him here, and Theo did an outstanding job of ironing that out."

Papelbon only pitched 7 2/3 innings in July, and said he is much stronger than he was a year ago at this time, in considerable part because of his reduced workload.

"I feel like night and day," he said. "There's no question whether I'm going to stay healthy. To me, there's no question. I know what works for me, I know what doesn't. And especially now that we've got that guy [Gagne].

"I had a long talk with Tito yesterday. I think [the reduced workload] is a blessing in disguise. When we come to the last month of the season, our starters are going to be on a tightrope and it's going to be, hand it over to the bullpen. We're going to take on a heavy, heavy workload. I think that was one of the main reasons we acquired Gagne."

At this time last season, Papelbon said, "I was a whupped puppy dog. Man, this year, I'm begging for more. You see the difference. That's all because of the bullpen we have this year, the way we can back up each other. I've got protection. We didn't have that last year. I was getting thrown out there more than the average person. And it's also because of the way Tito and [pitching coach] John Farrell run the pen. They've done an amazing job.

"A manager is not going to go through a season and be totally cushy with his players all year. He's dealing with a lot of alpha males in this locker room who want to go out and pitch and perform and play and be in the lineup. But Tito does an amazing job of keeping everybody's eye on what's important.

"The biggest thing here is just the respect we have for each other, between me and Tito and Theo. Hopefully, I can be with Tito the next 10 years or so in this clubhouse, and Theo. Tito is pretty much like a father to me. I came into this league with him, he taught me how to play the game, and I've only been with him."