Werner reports he's optimistic

Hardly stop-the-presses stuff, but it's important that ownership reflect the feeling of the fans. All members of the Nation will be crushed if the Red Sox don't make it back to the October tournament. The owners are no exception.

Werner chose not to address the flurry of trade rumors involving Nomar Garciaparra and Randy Johnson, but one comes away with the impression that the Sox boss doesn't think anything major is going to happen.

In a lengthy interview on the eve of the second half, Werner addressed a number of subjects, including Boston's chronically unhappy shortstop.

"Nobody is harder on himself than Nomar," said Werner. "I think he's going to have a great second half and contribute enormously. John [Henry] and I acknowledged that we understand his feelings were hurt by the offseason discussions and I think that's understandable, but hopefully we've put that behind us. We've talked to him and I think he understands that that's in the past. To one degree or another, all baseball players know that they're the center of a lot of publicity. We had those discussions and they ended up not leading anywhere."

Any big deal in the works now?

"We don't want to make any change for change's sake, but we are certainly open to improving the club to be ready for September and October," said Werner. "If we made a deal it would only be to strengthen our position for the next two months, but we don't want to do something stupid. We don't want to make a Larry Andersen trade . . . You'd like to have conversations between general managers stay private because they are often just exploratory. My own feeling is that most of these conversations go nowhere, and I think we're pretty confident that our team is going to have a strong second half."