Trading places: Cora, Casey set to return

Flailing pen may take another hit

MINNEAPOLIS - The Red Sox do not have much room to maneuver. At least in the bullpen.

With Alex Cora and Sean Casey set to come off the disabled list tomorrow, the team will be forced to make two moves. Although nothing has been announced, there are obvious choices: demoting infielder Jed Lowrie and reliever Craig Hansen to Pawtucket.

There is a chance the Sox will keep Hansen, who has impressed in two stints in Boston this season. But Hansen is the only pitcher in the bullpen with options. No one else can be sent to the minors without being designated for assignment, including Manny Delcarmen. The Sox have already gone through that three times, once with Kyle Snyder and twice with Bryan Corey, both of whom remain with the PawSox.

"I think at some point, and I think this is a view shared by all, we're here to build the best team possible," pitching coach John Farrell said. "Granted, we're still in a relatively early portion of the year, so there is safety in numbers in terms of overall numbers of pitchers, but at some point you have to look at the best available and those who are pitching the best at a given time.

"When the organizational decision becomes when do you keep a guy with options over a pitcher that might not have options remaining, those types of discussions have not been had."

Though Hansen has given up three runs in 4 1/3 innings with the Sox, he has shown promise. He looked impressive in a 1-2-3 eighth inning against the Tigers Thursday night. He also provides the bullpen with a powerful arm.

The Sox' relief corps is not as steady as it was last season. Jonathan Papelbon has been steady (although he blew his second straight save opportunity in last night's 7-6 loss to the Twins), but Delcarmen (6.75 ERA) and Mike Timlin (11.05 ERA) have struggled, and Hideki Okajima has allowed eight of 11 inherited runners to score. They have been better lately, lowering the bullpen ERA from 5.42 to 4.77 entering last night, but that ranked 13th in the American League.

Controlling problem

Daisuke Matsuzaka should be on his usual 110-pitch count tonight. As he returns from illness, Matsuzaka has been working on problems that surfaced in his last start. Some of his troubles (he threw 109 pitches in five innings of a 5-0 win over the Tigers Monday) were because of lingering effects of the flu, but another problem continues to plague him: pitch efficiency.

"It's just the fact that, at times, he pitches so fine and that he'll just miss and that causes him, on several occasions, to throw eight or nine more pitches than otherwise needed in a given inning," Farrell said.

"And possibly just trusting that I throw 90 to 94 miles an hour and I've got any number of secondary pitches that I can attack hitters with, that I don't have to be perfect with location. That's the point that's tried to be communicated. And it's being stressed, to not think that you have to be perfect when you pitch the ball."

Colon with PawSox

After throwing two innings in a game for the Red Sox' extended spring training team in Sarasota, Fla., Monday, Bartolo Colon will rejoin the PawSox today for his first minor league start since his oblique injury. The team is expecting him to go three innings, then progress from there. "We just look at this as Bartolo's got to get back to the point where he was prior to the injury," Farrell said. "That's a minimum of five innings, ideally getting him to 85 to 90 pitches. Then it's a legitimate option that we would look to fit him in at some point. There's been no earmarking of a date or whether we go to a six-man rotation, whether we look to replace. That's not been discussed at this point." . . . Because Pawtucket was rained out last night against visiting Norfolk, Cora and Casey will stay in Triple A an additional day for their final rehab starts. Cora was supposed to start at shortstop, with Casey at first.

Dome doldrums

The Sox have done much better on the road playing outside. They are 8-2 in Oakland, Cleveland, New York, and Detroit, and 1-7 in domes in Tokyo, Toronto, and Tampa Bay . . . The pink bats arrived yesterday for Mother's Day. All position players will hit with the bats tomorrow . . . The Red Sox made it 21 consecutive successful steals with Kevin Youkilis's second-inning swipe, a team record, according to The Elias Sports Bureau. Julio Lugo made it 22 straight, in the fourth inning, before J.D. Drew was thrown out attempting to steal second in the fifth . . . Lugo committed yet another error, bringing his tally to 11, when he misplayed Carlos Gomez's grounder in the second inning. It led to two unearned runs. It came two nights after a Lugo error contributed to Papelbon's first blown save of the season, in Detroit. Lugo made 19 errors last season, his first with the Sox . . . First Jon Lester had to duck shards of a broken bat, then he rolled his ankle while covering first base. But he did get the out. After avoiding pieces of Justin Morneau's bat, Lester arrived at first about the same time as Morneau, and rolled his ankle while tagging the bag. Lester said the ankle "shouldn't be a concern." . . . Before last night's start, in which Lester received a no-decision, he had a winning percentage of .765 (13-4 in 34 starts) in his major league career, the second-highest percentage among pitchers with at least 25 starts since 1900. Above him? Howie Krist, at .771 (37-11).