Red Sox center fielder Coco Crisp tosses his helmet after striking out to end the top of the sixth inning last night against the Royals.

AP / Ed Zurga

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Third baseman Mike Lowell didn’t travel with the Red Sox as they began a seven-game road trip. Instead, Lowell stayed behind and received a cortisone shot for his ailing right hip.

He was due to join the Sox here last night. Naturally, he was out of the lineup, and may sit tonight, too.

Originally, the Sox that Lowell might get the shot Sunday night, but because certain technology is necessary to administer the shot properly, he couldn’t get it done over the weekend.

“He had been looked at by the doctors,” said manager Terry Francona, “and they said `You’re really not going to make this worse, it just hurts.’ So he played and he got the shot this morning. He’ll get in here a little bit later tonight.”

Francona was unsure when Lowell might return to the lineup.

“He’ll want to (play tonight), and he may be able to,” said Francona. “But what I don’t want to do is do something like this that’s for the benefit of the rest of the year and have him run himself right in the ground by the fifth inning. If the trainers say he’s OK, which they actually think he will [be]…if he needs another day, I’ve got no problem doing that.”

Drew leads off

Minus Lowell, the Red Sox made some adjustments to the lineup and batting order as they opened theroad trip.

Francona had outfielder J.D. Drew leading off, with Kevin Youkilis hitting cleanup and Sean Casey — playing first as Youkilis moved across the diamond to take over Lowell’s spot at third base — batting sixth.

“We don’t have Lowell today, so trying to create some balance,” Francona said. “I talked to J.D. today, I don’t think this is his favorite thing. He kind of said, ‘I’ll do it, I’ll happily do it.’ I think it gives us a chance to not have J.D. and Casey (two lefty hitters) running up back-to-back and spreading some guys out. And J.D. gets on base so well. We’ll get Youk behind David [Ortiz] tonight. It just makes sense.”

Drew hit leadoff 14 times last year, his first season with the Sox. The last time he hit first last year was also against Kansas City — on July 18, 2007.

Drew got on base once (walk) in five plate appearances and scored the first run of the game.

Pedroia stays hot on road

Dustin Pedroia (three hits) extended his road hitting streak to 25 games, the longest for a Red Sox player in the last 95 years.

The last Boston player to have a longer road hitting streak was Tris Speaker, who hit safely in 29 straight away from home in 1913.

In this stretch, Pedroia is hitting .445 (49-for-110). It’s the third longest road-hitting streak for a second baseman since 1956.

Pedroia leads the American League with 45 multi-hit games.

Youkilis stays on the ball

Youkilis extended his hitting streak to 11 straight games with a run-scoring double in the first inning…Jason Bay has now hit safely in his four games with the Sox, going 5-for-13. For the first time as a member of the Sox, he failed to score a run last night.

smcadam@projo.com