BOSTON — This is gravy.

The Red Sox are in the playoffs for the fifth time in six years, with another chance to get back to the World Series, and the great thing is there is no pressure on them. Not really.

For the landscape has changed around here.

That’s the legacy of the two World Season titles in the last four years, the legacy of finally not having to worry about the “Curse of the Bambino,” or the fact they hadn’t won since 1918, all the baggage that always sat on the Sox’ shoulders as they went into the playoffs, all the tortured history that used to follow them around like some afternoon shadow.

Back in the bad old days, we already would have seen the pressure start to ratchet up, the pressure that ultimately seemed to sit on the shoulders of the Red Sox like some leaded weight.

Now all that seems long ago and far away, in such a different reality that now surrounds this Red Sox team as it gets ready to play tomorrow night in Anaheim.

In a sense, this is a free pass, the legacy of having won last year, and the fact this is a team that’s battled injuries all year.

David Ortiz. Mike Lowell. J.D. Drew. Josh Beckett. Julio Lugo.

Go right down the list.

All have missed a significant number of games, all have battled one ailment or another.

So it seemed only fitting yesterday that all the questions were about the state of Beckett, troubled with a strained oblique muscle, one that already has him out of tomorrow’s game and now has him tentatively scheduled to start Game Three. The same Josh Beckett who has been such a horse in the postseason, all but unhittable.

Or else they were about the state of Lowell, whose sore hip has him looking in the last few days like some aging softball player in a Sunday morning over-the-hill league.

Or else they were about Drew, whose back problem makes him problematic in the playoffs.

Which is not to say that other teams in the playoffs haven’t overcome injury problems, the Rays being the obvious example. Nor is it to make an excuse, for injuries are as much a part of the game as signs from the third-base coach.

It is to say, though, that the Red Sox are entering this postseason not as good as they were a year ago. Beckett’s status is the most obvious reason, for he is the ace of this staff, even with Dice-K’s 18 wins, and Jon Lester’s emergence as a big-time talent. Beckett is the one who has done it before, the one guy in the biggest game of the year that you hand the ball to.

Will he be able to pitch in this series?

And if he does, will he be the same Beckett we’ve come to expect?

Yesterday, they were just questions floating around in the wind.

As was the status of both Lowell and Drew.

“We haven’t finalized the roster yet,” manager Terry Francona said.

He was sitting in the interview room yesterday afternoon, and you would have had to be a detective to find even the slightest trace of being uptight. In fact, he seemed just the opposite, as if he were preparing for a three-game series in June against the Royals.

His entire message was that he wants his team to simply do what they do.

The magnitude of the playoffs?

“The idea is to handle your responsibilities,” he said. “No more. No less.”

Some of that, certainly, is Francona’s style, his message that you come to play every game the best you can, and see what happens. It’s the cornerstone of his philosophy that you don’t just “push a button” and elevate your performance in the playoffs; you just play your game and if you’re good enough you move on.

Not exactly win one for the Gipper, but it’s worked well for Francona in his five years here.

And this season might just be his best performance as a Red Sox manager, surely a job that’s a walk through a minefield, even in the best of times. For this was a team that was vulnerable, a team that could have gone either way back in August, Manny gone, too many guys banged up, chasing the Rays, and all but feeling the breath of teams chasing them in the wildcard race. A team that needed a good finish to get to these playoffs.

“We’ve been able to win 95 games with a lot of injuries,” Francona said. “We’re going to compete.”

His teams always do.

On the surface, anyway, they appear too banged up to win it all. And they are on the road in the first round against the Angels, a team that’s been the best in the game all year.

But this is playoff baseball, where anything can happen and usually does. Remember last year, when the Sox were down, 3-1, to the Indians, their season in peril? The Sox also are a team that’s battle-tested, a team that’s played in a slew of big games, knows the playoffs are a clean slate, that nothing that happened in the season matters now, that everyone arrives with no baggage, good or bad.

And maybe the best thing?

This quest for another World Series title comes without any pressure, courtesy of winning last year, and the fact the Red Sox no longer compete against their own history, their own tortured past.

This is the baseball version of a free pass.

Gravy.

breynold@projo.com