FORT MYERS, Fla. — Though the Red Sox last winter said it was their intention to give manager Terry Francona a contract extension this offseason, spring training is officially under way and the deal isn’t done yet.

Yesterday, as Francona and general manager Theo Epstein took questions together from reporters, a radio reporter asked what was taking so long to get a new deal done. While deferring to Epstein for an answer, Francona offered a sheepish smile, then jokingly thanked the reporter for bringing up the topic. “Signing [Francona] to a new contract is a priority,” said Epstein. “We’ve made some progress and we look to continue talks.”

Epstein added that both sides had vowed to keep negotiations out of the media until a deal was complete, and said the team and its manager would continue that policy.

Francona is entering the final year of a two-year extension, signed in March of 2006. His current salary ($1.7 million) can probably be expected to double, putting him more in line with some of the game’s highest-paid managers such as Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Lou Piniella. Thanks to the quirky schedule centered around the team’s trip to Japan, the Sox plan to start only Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka in the first four games of the regular season.

Here’s how: The Sox open their season early, with two games against the Oakland A’s in Tokyo, March 25-26. Then, after returning to the United States and three exhibition games in Los Angeles against the Dodgers, the Sox “resume” the regular-season schedule with two more games against the A’s — April 1-2 — in Oakland. Beckett will pitch the opener on March 25, then pitch the third game of the season, with the benefit of six days’ rest. Matsuzaka will pitch the second game in Japan on March 26, then the fourth game of the season on April 2, also with six days’ rest. That is, unless Matsuzaka is unavailable for either series because of his wife’s pending pregnancy.

Francona said the team was undecided about whether to take the team’s third, fourth and fifth starters — Jon Lester, Tim Wakefield and, presumably, Clay Buchholz — to Japan or leave them behind in Florida to get in some additional work.

“I don’t know yet,” said Francona. “We need time to see where we’re going.”

smcadam@projo.com