By SeanMcAdam
CSNNE.com
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- A day after making his Grapefruit League debut, Adrian Gonzalez took batting practice in Fort Myers and reported that his surgically repaired right shoulder felt "great.''
While his teammates traveled to Bradenton to face the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Sox gave Gonzalez a day out of the lineup to recover from his first game action.
"Batting practice today felt better today than it did Saturday and the day before, which is good,'' said Gonzalez. "Today was more of a strength day. I got some weights in. It felt good after everything we did.''
Asked if he felt any anxiety about how the shoulder would respond Sunday after his first game action of the spring Saturday, Gonzalez said: "The only anxiety I had was making sure I got here on time with the daylight saving time change.''
Gonzalez is scheduled to play again Monday night against the Yankees and said he hoped to get three at-bats after getting two at-bats Saturday.
"I'll have to talk Terry Francona into it,'' said Gonzalez. "We'll see how that goes. If you see a brawl in the dugout, you'll know what it's about.''
Boston Red Sox
With the first test passed, Gonzalez's spring is more about "the everyday grind of it. Right now, I'm still on the 'day-in, day-off' mentality. It's when you start getting into the four, five, six days in a row, which I don't think will happen until the season. The fatigue kicks in at that point.''
The first baseman said the shoulder is strong, but there's some fatigue in the joint from time to time.
"I'm still not fully recovered,'' he said. "I'm good enough to play and all that, but as far as being 100 percent, it's not there yet . . . It's not about strength. It's about endurance or stamina. I get to a certain point where I take too many swings or swing real hard numerous amount of times, I feel the fatigue.
"It's not about strength. It's not about those kinds of things. Say I have to take an extra 20 swings in the cage to get my swing right -- right now, I wouldn't be able to do that because that would just wear it down. So right now, everything's real controlled.
"You only take this many swing here, this many swings there, this many swings before the game, then when the game starts, you take x amount of swings and that's it. It's not, 'Hey, I need to take an extra 30 swings to be ready.' If I go into the cage to get my swing right and 20 swings in, it doesn't feel good, oh well. You take that into the game. I don't have the ability to take another 20.''
It's unlikely that Gonzalez will play on consecutive days until late next week. Gonzalez, who has averaged more than 160 games over his last four seasons, said his goal is to play all 162 games.
"I'm a first baseman,'' said Gonzalez, smiling. "How much energy do you really put out there? I don't steal bases. I don't run fast. I play first base. As long as my legs can take it, I'm good and thank God, up until now, my legs have been good enough to take it.''
Gonzalez prefers to play as much as possible and said he's never asked a manager for a day off.
"I've gotten into an argument when he's tried to give me a day off,''said Gonzalez. "The times they've given me a day off, I'm really annoying in the dugout. So the next time, they're like, 'Let's just throw him in there so he's not annoying me.' ''
Sean McAdam can be reached at smcadam@comcastsportsnet.com.Follow Sean on Twitter at http:twitter.comsean_mcadam