Beckett

BOSTON — In a surprise move, Tim Wakefield was a last-minute roster casualty for the ALDS, with Jon Lester taking his spot.

“Up until just a little bit ago,” said manager Terry Francona yesterday afternoon, “Wakefield was on our roster. (But) he had a cortisone shot (in the back). In his role with us now, if something unfortunate ever happened to a starter, Wake would be asked to come in and fill something like that in the game. And he’s not ready to do that. He’s been fighting it for a long time and it’s not fair to Wake.

“Because of our feelings for Wake and some of the respect that’s there, we wanted to give him a chance to pitch on our roster, in the series. (But) it was putting the team in a very difficult spot, which he understood . . . He bleeds for us, but he understands it’s the right thing to do. We were going to possibly put him in a situation that was not fair to him or the team. Doing this, we can slow him down and not rush him into two or three innings in a game where he’s not ready and get him ready for a start, hopefully later on.”

Lester, who was to be excluded, will now serve as the long man out of the bullpen, giving the Sox three lefty relievers, to go along with Hideki Okajima and Javier Lopez.

“If we get into extra-inning games,” said Francona, “you can use your other relievers, knowing you have a guy that can go multiple innings behind those guys.”

Lester was used in relief Sunday, pitching out of the bullpen for the first time this season.

Neither Lester nor Wakefield was available for comment.

Ace is his place

Francona thinks he’s seen Josh Beckett, tonight’s Game One starter, mature into an ace.

“We’ve seen a young guy work so hard and mature so much, and he became the guy we really needed him to become,” said Francona. “And every good team has guys like that on the team where you send your guy and you say, this is our guy and go get ‘em. And he’ll respond to adversity and he competes. He’s got a lot of different weapons. And you need that because we’re playing a good team.”

Seeing is believing

The Angels’ style of play has impressed Beckett.

“They can run. They’ve got guys that can hit the ball out of the ballpark. They move runners over. They play very fundamentally sound. They play the game the right way, the way they have to play to win. And they don’t make mistakes, offensively or defensively. We have to play fundamentally sound if we want to compete with them,” he said.

A dangerous man

One player in the Angels’ batting order who will definitely have Beckett’s attention will be former MVP Vladimir Guerrero, the most effective and powerful free-swinger in baseball.

“You have to be very careful (pitching to Guerrero),” said Beckett. “You have to be even more worried about being careless because if you think you’re wasting a pitch, it may not be a waste pitch to him and he’ll find a way to hit it as far as anybody.

“I think the thing is you really need to focus on not being careless," he added. “You have to be careful anyway because of who he is, but it’s when you get a little bit careless, that’s when people make mistakes, and mistakes are not good this time of year.”

Francona chimed in on the difficulties in pitching to Guerrero, who batted .324 with 27 homers and 125 RBI this season.

“There’s not a pitch that’s thrown that he doesn’t think he can hit,” said Francona. “And, unfortunately, he does hit some of them. He seems to hit balls six inches off the ground. When you go over how to pitch to him, throwing him a strike on the black is not necessarily a good pitch. Sometimes you have to attack him off the plate, in and out, because he can reach so much and with so much authority.”

How sweet it is

Kevin Cash said before Boston’s workout yesterday that he had no idea if he’d be added to the Red Sox’ ALDS roster. But the Red Sox included him, giving them flexibility to run and/or pinch hit for their other two catchers, Jason Varitek and Doug Mirabelli, without getting into a roster bind.

That is all just gravy for Cash, who had his contract purchased from Pawtucket on Aug. 17 when Mirabelli had to be placed on the disabled list.

“This has been unbelievable,” said Cash, who did a solid job catching Wakefield’s knuckleballs in place of Mirabelli. “What an experience. I came up here seven weeks ago to the best team in baseball at the time and I finished up with the best team in baseball. I’m sure in the offseason all that has transpired the last two months will sink in.”

While Cash’s offensive statistics were hardly dazzling (3 for 27, .111), he did have three important RBI as the Red Sox overcame an 8-1 deficit and beat Tampa Bay, 16-10, on Sept. 11.

Taking one for the team

David Ortiz has been a virtual walking ice pack this year. Still, he’s had one of the best offensive seasons in the league, and he revealed yesterday morning that he received a cortisone shot in his ailing right knee in preparation for the postseason.

“It’s OK,” he said. “I got a cortisone shot the other day to relieve the pain that’s there. Now, I hope it stays like that.”

smcadam@projo.com