BOSTON — Kevin Cash had some interesting moments in his first game as a Red Sox catcher yesterday and it figures to only get more exciting tonight.

If all goes as expected, Cash will be behind the plate again when the Sox open their last long road trip of the season in Tampa. Rather than dealing with sinkerballing Julian Tavarez, as he did in his first game, tonight Cash will have to worry about containing Tim Wakefield’s knuckleballs.

The plan, Sox manager Terry Francona confirmed, is to have Cash take over Doug Mirabelli’s job as Tim Wakefield’s personal catcher while Mirabelli is on the disabled list. Cash, who has the added bonus of playing in his home town tonight, welcomes the opportunity.

“I feel fine about it,” the former Florida State star said. “I played catch with Wake [Saturday]. I caught him a couple times this spring. I feel very comfortable.”

Already this season at Pawtucket, Cash has worked with Charlie Zink and John Barnes, both knuckleballers, so he does have a sense for what is in store. Still, he has worked enough with Wakefield to know there is a difference.

“With the younger guys, I think they’re hoping to get it in the vicinity of the strike zone. With Wake, he can go 3-0 and then throw three knuckleballs for strikes,” Cash said. “He has the ability to control it. I wish he could tell me which way it was going to move all the time, but that doesn’t happen.”

“He’ll be just fine,” Francona said. “If Cashy doesn’t catch it, he’ll go pick it up and Wake will throw it again. I don’t think it will affect the way Wake pitches, which I think is a pretty big compliment to Wake. Cashy won’t feel added pressure because of Wake. Wake will help him, which is good.”

The Sox thought of this contingency back in spring training.

“The last couple weeks of spring I would stay back from games to catch his side [sessions],” Cash said of working with Wakefield. The Sox do not plan to change their strategy because Wakefield has a new catcher. That includes if and when the Devil Rays get runners on base. Wakefield has major problems holding runners because of the knuckler.

“If you’re a conventional pitcher out there, maybe so,” Cash said of using different pitches to try to prevent stolen bases. “But with Wake, he’s going to pitch his game. He knows who’s fast. I think his approach is if they get on, OK, but I’m going to rely on my knuckleball and hopefully they keep popping it up. If we get an opportunity to throw a guy out, that’s great. But that’s not our main goal, worrying about Carl Crawford or [B.J.] Upton getting on first base. It’s more letting some guys get some knuckleballs to pop up or roll over.”

Cash was hitting only .176 with 7 homers and 25 RBI in 59 games at Pawtucket. He looked overmatched at the plate yesterday going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. But he is a veteran with 114 games of major-league experience with Toronto (2002-04) and Tampa Bay (2005). He is excellent defensively, having thrown out 46 percent of the runners (23-50) trying to steal against him in Pawtucket. He fired a strike to throw out Maicer Izturis trying to steal in the seventh yesterday.

Cash has spoken frequently with Mirabelli in the last several days to get tips. And tonight he will use Jason Varitek’s knuckleball glove because he does not have one of his own.

In Pawtucket, Cash played behind George Kottaras. But there was no consideration given to calling up Kottaras.

“George is a prospect. We’re in the middle of a pennant race. The reason we had Kevin Cash is just for this,” Francona said. “You have a young kid [Kottaras] playing in Triple-A. You have a veteran backing up in case something like this happens. This is why Kevin was there. George needs to play. He’s still got a lot of developing to do. It doesn’t mean he’s not going to be a good player, but to bring him into the middle of a pennant race in the middle of August wouldn’t be fair to him.”

“I signed here for this reason,” Cash said. “If something happened and they needed somebody to come up and spell Mirabelli or whoever until they got healthy. I wasn’t intending on making the team out of spring.”

As Mirabelli has told him, the goal tonight is not to get uptight.

“If you miss one sometimes you have a tendency to tighten up,” Cash said. “You just have to stay relaxed. You’re going to miss some. You’re going to clank some. But if you just keep the same approach, relax your hands and get in a comfortable position, you’ll be OK.”

pkenyon@projo.com