FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – Craig Hansen has been labeled Boston’s closer of the future. With the job vacant, that future could come soon.

After a difficult rookie season, though, Hansen is focused on just making the major-league club.

“If I had a choice, I’d like to close,” he said Wednesday, “but it’s basically not in my hands, and the only thing I’ve been working on is just trying to earn a role, whether it be middle relief (or) closing.”

At 6-feet-5 with a blazing fastball, Hansen is an imposing figure on the mound. In his final season at St. John’s, he was 3-2 with a school-record 14 saves and a 1.68 ERA in 31 appearances. As a high school senior in Glen Cove, N.Y., he didn’t allow an earned run in 69 innings.

And in his first major-league game with the Red Sox, just three months after being drafted in the first round in June 2005, he retired the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in order. He struck out two batters, one of them current Boston shortstop Julio Lugo, and enhanced his prospects as the future closer.

“He’s going to be a huge part of the Red Sox,” manager Terry Francona said that day, “maybe starting tonight.”

Less than two years later, though, Hansen is simply one of five or six players in the mix to take over as closer from Jonathan Papelbon, who is moving into the rotation. Hansen struggled with his control and keeping the ball down last year and was 2-2 with a 6.63 ERA in 38 relief appearances. He spent part of the season in the minors.

“I think that can help me more than probably a good season,” he said. “I go into the offseason pretty angry at myself for not having the season that I would like and it showed me what I did wrong and what I have to work on.”

It mostly had to do with his mechanics – his body position, his arm motion and his release point for the ball. He watched himself in a mirror and on video and came to one overriding conclusion.

“I was just speeding up,” Hansen said. “The veterans said, ‘you’ve got to slow down the game. The ball’s in your hands. You’re the pitcher and you control the pace of the game.’ “

Rushing, it seems, has been Hansen’s major problem since the Red Sox hurried him to the majors, making him the first player in club history to reach that level in the year he was drafted.

That continued last season, when he was recalled three different times from Triple A Pawtucket to a pitching staff beset by injuries.

Now Hansen is patient, even though the closer’s job is available.

“I really don’t know what my chances are. I haven’t really thought about it,” he said. “There’s a lot of quality veterans on the team right now and I’m just going to go out there and compete.”

Francona and new pitching coach John Farrell have identified four right-handers as closing prospects, although Joel Pineiro could have the inside track. The others are Brendan Donnelly, Julian Tavarez and Mike Timlin. Farrell, lowering the pressure and expectations on Hansen, said he may not be ready.

“We have great competition in our bullpen and when you have great competition, everybody seems to rise above,” Papelbon said. “Hopefully, somebody will rise above and say, ‘This is my job to keep.’ “

Hansen’s name surfaced in trade talks with Colorado, which was offering Todd Helton. But Boston is reluctant to part with young prospects. Hansen said he learned of the reports in an e-mail.

“My brother sent me a message with a link, so I clicked on it,” Hansen said. “It said: ‘For sale, house in Colorado.’ So I had to ask him what that was about.”

Hansen said he doesn’t want to leave Boston, where he spent much of the offseason.

“I got around a little more and I was able to see some nice restaurants,” he said.

And he still has a chance to be the Red Sox closer of the future.

“It’s something that I’ve got to earn, definitely,” he said, “and something that I’m going to be working for.”

AP-ES-02-14-07 1445EST