PORTLAND — While the rest of the Portland Sea Dogs took their places in front of lockers, attired in bleached-white, fresh-off-the-hanger uniforms, Daniel Bard slowly unbuttoned his and slipped it back into its compartment.

Left wearing a red undershirt adorned below the neck with the unmistakable ‘B’ logo, Bard quietly scurried away to a distant corner of the room, his back to a water cooler, where he was quickly accosted by a phalanx wielding three television cameras and seven tape recorders.

At the risk of reading too much into the juxtaposition at Wednesday’s Sea Dogs media day — and Bard means no disrespect to the city or its beloved, Double-A franchise — he has no desire to embrace this scene for very long.

Think of it as an unofficial rehabilitation assignment. Only there is no official timetable for how long it will last, and the culprit is not a physical malady.

The Boston Red Sox have optioned Bard to the minors in an effort to hasten his recovery from a 2011 freefall and 2012 bottoming-out, believing that he can reclaim the form that made him a first-round draft pick and a dominant, big-league set-up man.

Portland opens the season at 6 p.m. Thursday in the first of a four-game set with the Trenton Thunder at Hadlock Field.

“You can’t have good mechanics without a clear head, without the right mentality. They kind of go hand-in-hand,” Bard said. “When one’s not working, it’s hard to make the other one work. I feel good right now. I’m maybe not where I want to be level-wise, but I’ve got to pitch well where I’m at.”

Bard took the high road, but his mechanics may have taken a hit from one of the organization’s many missteps in the dreadful 2012 campaign.

The 6-foot-4, 215-pound was anointed the heir apparant to then-Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon during his first go-round with the Sea Dogs in 2008.

He ascended to the parent club a year later, and by 2010 was dominant in his role working the eighth inning ahead of Papelbon, weaving a 1.93 ERA. Bard then was brilliant in the first half of 2011, setting a club record with 25 consecutive relief appearances. But his September collapse (0-4) mirrored the Sox’s crash from the division lead to being knocked out of a wild card spot on the final night of the regular season.

Although Papelbon’s signing with Philadelphia appeared to open the door for Bard to become the closer, his brutal finish and injuries to high-dollar starters John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka prompted the Sox to move him into the rotation.

The switch proved disastrous. Bard (5-6, 5.24) had more walks (47) than strikeouts (44) and spent much of the season at Triple-A Pawtucket, where his numbers were even worse.

“A lot of starters try to pitch at 85 or 90 percent and then ramp it up when they need it. I tried to incorporate that when I was starting and kind of got my delivery all out of whack,” Bard said. “Then when I tried to go back and get that 100 percent, it wasn’t there, just because the timing was off. It never was quite right the rest of the year trying to figure that out.

“I think not picking up a ball for a couple months after the season ended, which is what I always do, your body kind of hits the reset button. You re-teach yourself how to throw in December and get back into it. It felt better the first time I picked up a ball in the offseason, and it’s been progress since then.”

Under the watchful eyes of new Sox manager John Farrell and pitching coach Juan Nieves, Bard showed signs of his old self in spring training. He struck out the side on 14 pitches in a March 9 game against the Minnesota Twins. Even more pleasing to the eye was a reading of 97 mph on the radar gun, a clip Bard hadn’t hit in two years.

There were also painful reminders of Bard’s erratic, recent past. He walked four and hit two batters in eight innings. His ERA was 6.75.

“I think it’s just the backspin of the ball and being consistent outing to outing. Making those little mechanical corrections pitch to pitch rather than hitter to hitter,” Bard said. “All things I did this spring at times, just maybe not every time out. I know I’m capable of it. It feels good coming out (of my hand), so that’s the focus right now.”

Nieves told Boston radio station WEEI that Bard made “tremendous improvement” in Fort Myers. He noted that the decision to ship Bard to Portland was not a demotion but a sign that the Sox expect his return to the bullpen to be more of an extended process than a matter of one or two strong outings.

Bard noted that the Sea Dogs’ physical appearance — field, clubhouse, even front office personnel — hasn’t changed much since he was here five years ago. Another comfortable common denominator is pitching coach Bob Kipper.

“Once they explained it to me it kind of made more sense. I had Kip in ’08. He was there when things kind of clicked for me when I was in the minor leagues the first time, so he kind of knows what that looks like and the preparation I need to put in. I’m excited to work with him,” Bard said. “I think opening day’s always exciting. You start to get some games that mean something. I feel good throwing the ball. I just want to get out there and face hitters.

Bard’s repertoire of pitches never changed from relief to the rotation. He continued throwing two- and four-seam fastballs and a breaking ball with an occasional change-up. He said that his mistake was trying to make too many changes to his delivery, rather than taking what worked in the bullpen and applying it to six or seven innings.

He also has come to grips with the reality that his daily progress reports have become front-page news.

“I guess that’s how it’s been since I converted to starting last year. It was the talk of camp last year for whatever reason. There was no other good story to talk about, I guess,” Bard said. “Kind of every throw I made was overscrutinized, and it was the same thing this spring about what were they going to do with me. I really don’t know it any other way now.”

Other popular stories, of course, have been the clubhouse misbehavior that led to manager Terry Francona’s firing, the fiasco that was his successor Bobby Valentine’s one-and-done tenure, and the blockbuster trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers that helped the Sox escape Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Adrian Gonzalez’s ill-fated, long-term contracts.

The crispness in the air this February and March was almost palpable to the one player in the Sea Dogs clubhouse who lived through it all.

“Spring training felt like a very drama-free clubhoue, which we didn’t have any day last year. It just seemed like a lot of players who want to win and want to win playing the right way,” Bard said. “We haven’t had that in over a year. We had maybe some individual agendas and things like that. It feels like we have all 25 guys plus the coaching staff going for the same goal, so hopefully I’ll be a part of that soon.”

For now, and for who-knows-how-long, though, he’s here, hoping that the crash ends where the climb began.

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