So says Red Sox relief pitcher Julian Tavarez, who claims he is closer to manny than a brother. Tavarez says that if Manny really wanted to be traded from Boston then Manny would have been gone a long time ago.

Tavarez, who held court after practice today for about 20 minutes also tried to tell us that Manny loves Boston. Actually Tavarez did tell us that, it's just a question of whether or not we believe him. Tavarez did admit that Manny feels like he is in a cage at times in response to my question about whether Manny feels like he has lost his privacy.

Tavarez also told us that he feels like he, Tavarez is very misunderstoood since he has lost his temper on the field a couple of times and hit batters intentionally. Tavarez says that he is , well, a good guy and that we shouldn't judge players too quickly and over one or 2 incidents.

You know what I say- shut up and successfully close some games, would you please?. No, Just kidding. This Tavarez does seem like a nice enough guy, he just happens to have a very short fuse and he relates to Manny because he feels like they arre both understood.

Nothing like Spring training. More later