Craig Hansen is off to a great start with the PawSox this season.

AP / Stephan Savoia

PAWTUCKET — It is one thing for an athlete to talk about changing his style. It is quite another matter for the player to actually carry out his plan.

Craig Hansen is proving it can be done. He is doing it so well, in fact, that he is rapidly projecting himself back into the pitching picture with the Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox’ first-round draft choice out of St. John’s three years ago continued yesterday to look like a new man. After struggling much of last year, he is off to a sensational start with the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Including his four-out performance yesterday, Hansen has pitched in eight games for Pawtucket, gone 12 1/3 innings and has yet to allow a run. It has become news when he allows a hit, as he did yesterday when Ben Francisco grounded a single to left off Hansen during Pawtucket’s 6-5, 10-inning win over Buffalo. The hit was only the third Hansen has allowed. He has walked four, including one yesterday, and struck out 13, two in his latest performance.

For the season, hitters are 3-for-43 against the hard-throwing Hansen. What makes the work all the more noteworthy is that Hansen is doing it exactly the way he promised he would before the season began.

“I’ve gone back to the way I pitched at St. John’s,” the 6-foot-6, 230-pound right-hander said. “My mechanics have changed.”

Hansen, a Scott Boras client who signed a deal worth more than $4 million, was thought to be as close to a sure thing as a prospect can be. He spent time with the parent team in 2005 and 2006, his first two years as a pro. That’s when he hit some bumps in the road. He struggled, with a 6.63 ERA in 38 appearances with Boston in 2006. He had more problems last year, when he spent the entire season in Pawtucket, especially in the first half.

He finished with a 3.86 ERA in 40 appearances for Pawtucket after it had been over 5.00 for part of the season. He allowed 90 base runners, 58 hits, 32 walks, in 51 1/3 innings. His strikeouts-to-walks ratio was 1.5 to 1, with 48 strikeouts to go with the 32 walks — not what any team wants out of a potential closer.

It was last summer, as he was having problems, that Hansen made changes.

“I decided to do it,” he said. “Halfway through last year I was in a slump, so I decided, you know what, ‘If I’m going to fail, I’m going to do it myself.’ ” This season, he has built on that.

He is, in effect, short-arming the ball the way he did until turning pro. It might not be the style some coaches prefer, but the results are impossible to deny. He is still throwing in the mid- to high-90s and, even better for him, his slider has regained its movement.

Hansen once again is an impressive presence on the hill, although he points out that his improvement goes beyond mound work.

“Basically, I’m staying on a workout routine that’s working for me,” he said. “It’s been working since spring training. I was able to get a lot of things done in spring training that I needed to. Pitching in different situations, getting myself in different situations and pitching my way through it. It helped out a lot.

“Definitely, I feel a confidence boost,” he added. “There are days I go out there now when maybe I’m not feeling as well, maybe I’m a little tired due to a long trip or something, and I’m able to get through it because I know my routine is solid, day in and day out. That’s the thing that gets you through on the days that you don’t have your best stuff.”

He also is feeling better after having surgery to deal with sleep apnea. He had his tonsils removed and a deviated septum repaired. The machine he had been given to use to help him get proper sleep is no longer needed.

“I still have it, but I don’t need it,” he said. “If you know anyone who wants to buy it, let me know.”

Now, it is the hitters who face Hansen who are being put to sleep.

pkenyon@projo.com