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Manager's decision

Red Sox president Larry Lucchino didn't shed any light this morning on the biggest question on the minds of Red Sox fans: Will Jacoby Ellsbury remain an everyday player even after Manny Ramirez returns to the lineup?

"[Terry Francona has] to make the decision." Lucchino said this morning on Boston sports radio station WEEI. "We give him the players. Basically the front office's job is to give the manager the 25 or 30 players and to confer with him from time to time. The ultimate question of who plays, and where they bat in the lineup and all that, has to remain with the manager. If you start getting front office determination of too many of those questions, then I think you're sort of eroding the job description of the manager."

The question was posed, of course, because an important decision looms once Ramirez is healthy enough to return to his spot in left field: Should the Sox move Ellsbury back to the bench, or over to right field to replace the disappointing J.D. Drew, who signed a five-year, $70 million contract last offseason?

"At this time of year, the money issues become very, very secondary," Lucchino said. "Right now, you're worried about winning each game and you've got to put the best team on the field."

Lucchino spoke about the slow starts of high-priced free-agents Drew and Julio Lugo.

"I'm not putting those contracts, necessarily in the misfire column," Lucchino said. "I think you're going to have to wait and see. I was just saying last night to John Henry how a couple of these players on our team can really reverse their current status, or the perception of them with a very solid September and, knock on wood, October. So let's wait until a little more data comes in before we relegate certain players to the mistake column."

Lucchino said it could be another week before Ramirez returns to the lineup.

"We were told when it happened, it would take 10 days to two weeks for this thing to really get better and that it was hard," Lucchino said. "And of course the doctors said that it was hard to calculate precisely the amount of time it would take. But we've also been told that Manny's chomping at the bit. He's been doing his rehab stuff. He's been working overtime on his rehab stuff in order to get back sooner rather than later.

"But if you accept the notion that it's usually about two weeks, and again you can never be certain about it, we still have a few more days coming with this, we're at about day nine or 10 of that period, so I suspect we're still perhaps a week away."