BOSTON –– In a season shaped by his recovery from hip surgery, Mike Lowell found himself improving just as the team around him fell apart.

As the Red Sox flopped in three games against the Angels, Lowell distinguished himself in the field, making play after play and looking almost athletic at times, a characteristic that eluded him much of the season.

“I think it’s a little bit ironic because I think this is the time I felt the best all year. I really felt like I was moving around a bit. I guess from that standpoint I’m ending on a good note,” Lowell said.

That late-season improvement raises the hope that Lowell’s mobility and stamina could be elevated next season, but even a healthy Lowell would be no sure thing to begin 2010 as the starting third baseman. The Red Sox face a logjam at the corner infield spots, and Lowell’s spot could be one of those up in the air as the Sox explore their options.

Manager Terry Francona expects that Lowell’s hip will be healthier and stronger heading into next season. But Lowell will be 36 by opening day. He wasn’t fast to begin with, and now he’s positively glacial. Lowell has put a lot of demands on his body, one that he happily jokes is not that of an “elite athlete.”

At what point will all that start to really take its toll, on more than just his speed?

“As guys get older, where do you balance the surgery, guys becoming a certain age, and another year of wear and tear? Some of it’s hard to answer,” Francona said.

Lowell hit .290 with 17 home runs and 75 RBI in 445 at-bats, another consistent season in a 12-year career full of them. But that consistency is still undermined by the question marks regarding his health, as seen in the words of general manger Theo Epstein.

“We predict that Mike Lowell will be improved next year physically. How improved will he be?” he wondered aloud during a news conference last week.

Lowell had offseason hip surgery in the fall of 2008 and recovered in time to play almost the entire first half of the 2009 season, despite showing increased fatigue as the calendar turned toward July. Lowell’s health improved later in the year, but his playing time fell drastically when catcher/first baseman Victor Martinez was acquired from Cleveland. When Martinez played first, Kevin Youkilis shifted to third, and Lowell usually sat on the bench in those situations. He had 282 plate appearances in 68 games in the first half, compared with 202 PAs in 51 games in the second half.

“I’d say the first two months, I was pretty happy about being able to play every day. I think the first days that I went into spring training, there [were] a lot of question marks about how much I was going to be able to play,” Lowell said. He may have played a little too much, causing him to tire, but that evened out in August and September, when he rode the pine more often than he wanted.

“I wanted to play more than I did in the last two months, so I guess they canceled each other out,” Lowell said.

The loss of playing time grated on him to some degree, considering he had worked himself back to health and was starting to regain some of his mobility and range at third.

“I didn’t really have expectations, where my goal was to play X number of games. I was hoping to be healthy enough to be on the field, and if I did that, I felt I should be in there every day,” Lowell said.

He wasn’t, and that logjam figures to continue, as neither Youkilis nor Martinez is going anywhere anytime soon.

Considering that crunch of players, and Lowell’s unhappiness with an irregular schedule, keeping the veteran third baseman is not a foregone conclusion. Lowell has one year and $12 million remaining on the contract he signed after being named World Series MVP in 2007. A trade would require Lowell’s approval, but if he could be a full-time starter and leader on a National League club, Lowell might waive his no-trade protection.

General manager Theo Epstein last week discussed the possibility that 2010 could be the last chance for a group of players in contract years. Or the team could pull the trigger on some changes even sooner, meaning this offseason.

The group of players going into contract years is headlined by David Ortiz, Josh Beckett, Victor Martinez and Lowell. Beckett, Ortiz and Martinez won’t be going anywhere this winter. Lowell could be.

“I think it could go a number of different directions,” Epstein said. “We’re always open to change, because you need change to improve; it’s part of the natural cycle in baseball, and in life. Sometimes the market doesn’t bear that out; sometimes there aren’t the right fits. Sometimes it’s not the right free-agent market; sometimes you end up with more status quo than you want.

“If that’s the case, if we look back three or four months from now and say, ‘Wow, there weren’t major changes,’ I think next year will be perhaps the last year of this main group of players. We have a lot of players going into contract years next year. I think it might be one more chance with this group to go out and win the whole thing,” he continued.

“If we are able to make changes, I think maybe that transition we talked about may happen earlier than some people expected.”

If change does happen, and the Sox did go outside the organization for another third baseman, the class of the third-base free-agent market is Chone Figgins, the Angels speedster who improved his game significantly this season by working on his plate discipline. Figgins, 32, qualifies as a Type B free agent, meaning the Sox would have to give up draft-pick compensation to land him. But Figgins’ skills, and his positional flexibility (he can play second, third and outfield well, and can even fill in at shortstop if need be) could make him an intriguing possibility if the Sox decide they want to go in that direction.

But Boston wouldn’t even need to replace Lowell if they dealt him away. They have the personnel to fill in for him right now.

The Sox could move versatile first baseman Youkilis over to third full-time, split Martinez’s time between catcher and first base, and then play Casey Kotchman the rest of the time at first.

Lowell doesn’t know what his future will bring, but he is looking forward to finally being able to train hard and work on his baseball skills, rather than just worrying about his hip full-time.

“I’m looking forward to strengthening my hip this offseason instead of –– last offseason, I was just getting range of motion back,” Lowell said. “I’m hoping to make big strides this offseason so I can come into spring training ready to go, just like I did every year, basically, prior to this one.”

dbarbari@projo.com