BOSTON -- More than once, in the hours after he fired Jimy Williams as his manager and elevated Joe Kerrigan, Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette went out of his way to point out that Williams had been on the job nearly five seasons, placing him among the leaders in tenure among managers.

Duquette's inference wasn't hard to understand: Sometimes, change is good.

In Duquette's mind, it was particularly good for a team that had lost six of its last seven, and scored a grand total of 10 runs in those six defeats.

It was welcome in a clubhouse that was full of complaints about playing time and unrest over uncertain or unspecified roles.

And it was needed on the field, where, to Duquette's eyes, the Red Sox seemed flat and listless.

"It looked to me," said Duquette, "like everyone was waiting around for us to make a change."

So he did.

Kerrigan seemed to understand that stepping into Williams' job and approaching it from the same perspective wasn't what his general manager had in mind.

Like a politician ousting an incumbent, Kerrigan had his mandate for change and used it quickly.

In comments to the media and later, in addressing the team for the first time, Kerrigan, while respectfully paying homage to Williams, quickly distanced himself from his predecessor.

First, he endorsed a more set lineup, a message that was quickly embraced by position players who had grown weary of Williams' penchant for new combinations. In his first 118 games, Williams had tried more than 100 different lineups.

The Boston roster is full of players who are on the final year of lucrative contracts, mindful that they need more playing time as they prepare to re-enter the market this winter. Williams' philosophy was to rotate a number of them -- Troy O'Leary, Dante Bichette, Mike Lansing -- in an effort to keep his entire roster fresh.

But this approach succeeded in pleasing no one and angering many. Kerrigan will soon find that he's risking something similar -- if he goes with a more set lineup, some of the players unhappy with occasional playing time are likely to be livid about no playing time at all.

For now, however, Kerrigan's embrace of a more predictable and set lineup was widely embraced.

"I like stability," he said. "I think every player likes to be put in a set role."

Kerrigan also endorsed a more aggressive approach on offense. While Williams largely eschewed bunts and hit-and-runs -- evidently believing his personnel was unsuited for the nuances of "little ball" -- Kerrigan promised to run some and put more baserunners in motion.

"Sometimes, you have to manufacture runs," said Kerrigan.

The Red Sox have had a slowdown in manufacturing. Entering last weekend, more than 40 percent of their runs had been scored via home runs, a dangerous reliance that invited inconsistency.

Kerrigan appointed Trot Nixon as his leadoff hitter, and will have Nomar Garciaparra bat second. He also installed the slumping Dante Bichette as his everyday DH in the fifth spot, with Carl Everett and Manny Ramirez sandwiched in the third and fourth spots.

The other four spots -- catcher, second base, third base and first base -- will continue to be mixed and matched.

Kerrigan also hinted that newly acquired Ugueth Urbina may be positioned to take over as closer from the embattled Derek Lowe. Urbina got the call in the ninth inning of Thursday's 6-4 win over Seattle, which delighted the fans who had lost patience with Lowe (four blown saves, eight losses) in recent weeks and embraced the flashier, hard-throwing Urbina.

That enraged Lowe, who waved off reporters seeking comment after the game. Directing them to Kerrigan's office, Lowe barked: "Go ask that (expletive)."

No doubt, Kerrigan will run into similar examples of player unrest as he finds that no manager can keep all of the players happy all of the time.

In time, he'll find that he'll succeed and fail largely on the basis of how well his players perform, and not how well he strategizes or motivates.

Soon, too, he'll find out that, like Williams, he's been handed a roster that is overpriced and underachieving. For all the money spent -- the meter is running over $110 million -- the Red Sox lack a legitimate leadoff hitter, are weak defensively at a number of positions and, change of philosophy or not, notoriously slow as a team.

And, as he probably knows all too well, whether his club reaches the playoffs -- or the Holy Grail that has eluded this franchise for 83 years and counting -- will be dependent on its pitching.

For now, the Red Sox rotation consists of a senior citizen castoff (David Cone), a knuckelballer who's been yanked from the rotation to the bullpen more times that he'd care to recount (Tim Wakefield) and a rookie lefty who's yet to make his first major league start (Casey Fossum).

If he's lucky, Kerrigan could soon get Pedro Martinez, who was encouraged by a simulated game thrown amid the chaos of the managerial change Thursday afternoon.

Should Martinez pitch the way he has in winning three Cy Young Awards, Kerrigan likely will ride that mound into October. If he doesn't, Kerrigan will find himself steering an expensive and flawed roster to the finish line, shy of its intended goal.

Change is great. But there's nothing like the game's most dominant pitcher to make a new manager look smart.

Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal writes occassionally for ESPN.com.