Not ready for role call

Tigers manager Jim Leyland wasn't talking about anyone in particular when he said about bullpens, "That's how you win. If you want to lose, have a bad bullpen. If you don't have someone to close games, you won't have a good time."

Leave it to Leyland to simplify it. What's worse than your offense building a lead, your starting pitcher throwing seven good innings, and your bullpen throwing it all away?

Nobody with the Red Sox is going to come out and say they're concerned. But there has to be some angst.

Mike Timlin, who might have been the chosen one -- and still might be the closer when he returns from a strained oblique -- has the most experience and the mentality to close. Timlin has one more day in shut-down mode following a recurrence of his injury last week. Tomorrow, he's expected to resume his throwing program.

Earlier in his career, there was thought that Timlin was better suited to be a set-up man, but now he seems to have figured it out. Still, is closing too much for him to handle at age 40?

Pitching coach John Farrell still believes there's a four-man competition among Timlin, Brendan Donnelly, Julian Tavarez, and Joel Pineiro. General managers and scouts outside the team who were polled feel Tavarez has the best shot because of his rubber arm and his knowledge of the league, but Farrell is being much more mysterious.

"Nothing has changed in our internal conversations or what's taken place on the field to lead us to a clear-cut emergence of that guy that we're going to open up the season with," Farrell said. "We would hope in the last 10 days of camp there would be some separation with performance on the field and then we have to factor in who handles the blown save the best."

Tavarez is at his best when he's given a role in which he feels important. He thrived as a starter last season. The one thing Tavarez asked the Red Sox in the offseason was to give him a role and allow him to stick to it. That has not happened as yet.