FORT MYERS, Fla. -- A day after Red Sox manager Alex Cora said that he wasn’t ready to name a closer, Matt Barnes made it clear that he is ready to reclaim his old job.

The hard-throwing righty is ready to turn the page from his second-half woes of a year ago.

Barnes was asked early in his press conference on Monday if he felt it was realistic for him to be the closer again.

“Yes,” said Barnes, without any pause.

What did Barnes learn after having a dominant All-Star-worthy first half before being so shaky over the final couple of months of the season that he was taken out of high-leverage situations?

“Baseball is a very humbling game. You can’t ride the waves in this game,” Barnes said. “It’s going to eat you alive if you do. You’ve got to stay as flat and neutral as possible and take it day by day, and know that one of the beautiful parts about this game is [that] you always have a chance to go out there and perform, since we play every day.

“Like I said, we’re going to work and improve on that, trying to get rid of the second-half hiccups that have been historical in my career. And then I’ll be working with the coaching staff, the pitching staff, teammates, trainers, strength coaches and put together a good plan for this year.”

Once he had time to slow things down in the offseason, Barnes had a better grasp on what happened down the stretch.

“Yeah, it was kind of crazy,” Barnes said. “Obviously the first half of the season went really well. I think in the second half, I went through a stretch where I was in a lot of games -- kind of got tired -- and when you get tired, you start trying to recreate what you had had previously, right? And then you kind of create bad habits.

“So obviously creating bad habits, I didn’t perform well and then got COVID and then was sitting down for 10 days, two weeks, didn’t get to pitch in the game. And I come back, and then we only have a couple of weeks before the postseason.”

Barnes said that he will be better in the long run after having gone through such a tumultuous period.

“Comparing the first half to the second half, it was tough, not going to lie to you,” said Barnes. “It was tough going from the level I was at to not even making the postseason roster originally. But I think in everything we do, you don’t get to improve unless you experience tough times. You don’t improve by being great all the time. You don’t learn anything that way.”

One reason Cora might be comfortable with Barnes starting the season as the closer is that the righty has always been strong in April, holding opponents to a .179 average and a .572 OPS in that month.

Having a short memory has helped Barnes start seasons fast.

“I think that’s one of the nice things I’ve been able to do in my career, is whatever happened the year before, what happened in August and September last year, [they] have absolutely nothing to do with what’s going to happen in April,” Barnes said. “They’re seven months apart. You sit down and you don’t play catch for a month and a half, you don’t face hitters and get off a mound for three months after that. Sometimes that’s the best solution."

The one thing Barnes hopes most in 2022 is to avoid the dog days of August. In that month, he has a career ERA of 8.02.

“Let's just call a spade a spade,” said Barnes. “It has kind of been a trend -- the first half has historically been pretty good in my career and then that August has been kind of terrible and then September is better. We have to go to the drawing board and figure out why does that happen.

“Is it volume? Is it something we need to change in the weight room? Is it conditioning stuff? I don't know, right? We're going to sit down and have a game plan for that. How do we adjust? Maybe it's not just August. Maybe it's something we change in April, May and June. We'll get together. We'll figure out a plan, and then kind of go from there. First and foremost, not getting COVID will probably help.”

Bloom: ‘Take advantage of all opportunities’
Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has identified a right-handed bat and bullpen help as his top priorities to upgrade prior to Opening Day. But he will keep all his options open.

With a barrage of free agents still available in the days following the end of the lockout, and the trade market also fully open, Bloom knows this is no time to be narrow-minded.

“In this period, especially with so much going on and so many conversations, we want to be nimble enough to take advantage of all opportunities,” Bloom said.

Though Bloom is prioritizing a righty-handed bat following the trade of Hunter Renfroe to Milwaukee, he said not to rule out Kyle Schwarber’s big lefty bat returning to the fold. A free agent, Schwarber gave the Red Sox a production and chemistry jolt down the stretch of 2021.

“You look at the right side of our infield and the guys that spent the lion’s share of the time there that are here now are both right-handed hitters,” Bloom said. “And we can complement them. I don’t want to limit it. And we’re not limiting our search to that. Clearly, after the deal we made with Jackie [Bradley Jr.] and Hunter, it does make that [right-handed bat] more of a thing.”