Notes: Barnes a closer?; Sox pitching plan

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- It was nearly a decade ago -- June 2011 -- that the Red Sox took a hard-throwing starting pitcher from UConn with the 19th overall pick in the MLB Draft. It was a compensatory pick for Victor Martinez leaving as a free agent to sign with the Tigers.

After Matt Barnes rose through the farm system, he transitioned from starting pitcher to key setup man, and he has been a consistent workhorse for Boston over the previous five seasons.

Through all the different changes the Sox have had in the bullpen over the years, Barnes has been the constant.

This season -- his final one before free agency -- he might get an extended look as the full-time closer for the first time in his career. Just don’t expect him to lobby for the ninth inning through the media.

Do you want to be the closer? That was a question posed to Barnes in a Zoom call on Saturday.

“Yes,” Barnes said.

That was the entire answer. At this point, Barnes doesn’t need to campaign for himself. He’s been around long enough that the team knows what he can do.

It will be up to manager Alex Cora to decide if Barnes is more familiar in the closing role he performed for the final month of last season, or the setup job he’s done for most of his career.

One thing is clear: Barnes will just about always be pitching with the game on the line.

“I don’t know if he’s more valuable in the ninth, the eighth or the seventh, but he’s a valuable guy for us,” Cora said. “We’ve got options now. We got more options than what we had in ‘19. The thing with Barnes, just like [former Sox closer Brandon Workman], there are certain days that control becomes a factor. You don’t want traffic late in games. But at the same time he can actually punch people out.”

Given that Cora said on Saturday that Japanese acquisition Hirokazu Swamaura will not be in the early-season mix for the ninth inning, the competition seems to be between Barnes and Adam Ottavino, the veteran righty the Red Sox acquired in a trade with the Yankees.

Barnes had a tough time last season adjusting to the stoppage in Spring Training and then the quick ramp-up that was Summer Camp, and it took him a while to recover. But after Workman was traded to the Phillies in late August, he got a chance to close, converting nine of his 12 save opportunities while posting a 3.38 ERA.

Barnes is ready to be firing away on all cylinders from the start this year.

“I feel great right now,” Barnes said. “I do. Last year obviously had its ups and downs. It started off not that great, but I was pretty happy with the way I threw the ball the last five weeks of the season last year. We brought in a couple of key pieces this year to help bolster the bullpen. Some guys with experience who have electric stuff, who has been there, done that. So that’s always awesome.”

Pitching plans

With the Grapefruit League season set to start on Sunday, pitching coach Dave Bush revealed the outline of how he will deploy his rotation in the coming days. For starters, the Red Sox will go with a six-man rotation.

Nathan Eovaldi is first out of the gate on Sunday, followed by Garrett Richards on Monday, Martín Pérez on Tuesday, Nick Pivetta on Wednesday, Matt Andriese on Thursday and staff ace Eduardo Rodriguez on Friday.

If the Grapefruit League schedule had stayed as originally planned, Rodriguez would have started the first game. Instead, he stayed on that throwing schedule and threw a two-inning simulated game on Saturday, pitching against teammates Enrique Hernández, Martín Pérez, Marwin Gonzalez, J.D. Martinez and others.

“He looked good,” Cora said. “Actually, we were talking about the fact that he was able to repeat his delivery for two innings. It’s a positive. Good stuff. A few pitches over the middle of the plate. As far as mechanics and how he felt, it was a good step towards the right direction.”

Houck could be ticketed for Triple-A

Despite prospect Tanner Houck’s lights-out performance in three starts at the end of last season, it seems most likely he will open the season at Triple-A Worcester if the other projected members of the rotation are healthy.

“I don’t know yet,” Bush said. “We still have more than a month of Spring Training left. At this point last year, we had a bunch of healthy starters and by the time we played a game we didn’t. So there’s a lot of factors that go into it. He’s certainly one of the ones competing for a spot, and the way he pitched last year is impressive, and also carries some weight.

“But big picture, I don’t know right now. We have guys in camp competing for spots, which is great. It’s a good sign that our team is at the point where we have guys with big league experience competing for big league spots. That’s what you want, that’s where you have depth and a better team.”

Setting Sale?

There’s understandably a lot of interest in when Chris Sale will return from Tommy John surgery. The short answer is that the Red Sox are still mapping it out.

The good news is that Sale is essentially doing everything in Spring Training except for throwing off a mound.

“He’s throwing. He’s on a good throwing program now,” Bush said. “I threw with him today. He looked pretty good. I haven’t mapped out with the trainers exactly what that looks like. I know it’s certainly not the first month or so of the year. Beyond that, don’t know exactly what we’re looking at. Sometime during the season. I think that goal will be clarified later on this spring, I would hope, but I don’t know exactly.”

Plawecki works out, still not on roster

Though catcher Kevin Plawecki is still on the COVID-19 injured list, he has passed all his protocols and participated in his first workout on Saturday. In fact, Plawecki was behind the plate for Rodriguez’s sim game.

“He was at part of the workout. He can actually build up until a certain time and then we have to make a decision [on the roster,” Cora said.

Recently-acquired outfielder Franchy Cordero hasn’t arrived yet either, as he is another player who opened camp on the Covid injured list. Cora indicated he will be in camp within a few days.