enlarge The Associated Press

Nick Green’s winning homer Sunday against the Braves was the latest example of his surprising emergence as Boston’s shortstop.

TODAY'S GAME

WHO: Red Sox (Penny 6-2) at Washington Nationals (Lannan 4-5)

WHEN: 7:05 p.m.

TELEVISION: NESN

The Red Sox have been doing their part for the environment this season. They've taken a stab at the ultimate recycling project: a shortstop picked off the scrap heap, discarded by their archrival.

The Sox are going Green, and it couldn't be working out better.

Nick Green has become Boston's everyday shortstop, the biggest surprise of the 2009 season – Daisuke Matsuzaka already has cornered the Most Disappointing Player award. In fact, Green filled a hole that could've been a major problem for this team.

Green's walk-off home run through the mist Sunday afternoon against Atlanta was the latest chapter in a story no one expected to read. Jed Lowrie was coming back to fight Julio Lugo for the starting job.

Lowrie was the surprise story of 2008, fielding the position without an error in 49 regular-season games. He hit well until suffering a wrist injury slowed him late in the year. That injury has kept him out of all but five games this season.

Meantime, Lugo started the year on the disabled list and continues to frustrate fans with his erratic defense. The Red Sox signed him for $36 million over four years to shore up the position. So far, it has been two-and-a-half years of underachievement.

Along came Green, in the Nick of time. He was the last player to make the roster out of spring training but grabbed everyone's attention when he hit .321 in May.

However, he also was among the major league leaders in errors at that point, with eight.

A closer look reveals he has been heading in the right direction with his glove all season. He had five errors in 65 chances in April, three errors in 61 chances in May and just one in 62 chances this month.

The American League is not a developmental league, but Green has had to go through a highly visible 10 weeks of on-the-job training.

He never had been an everyday shortstop prior to this season.

"We've talked a lot about the evolution of this," said Manager Terry Francona. "From nonroster in spring training ... it's gotten to the point where he's just been a really good player ... hopefully on a winning team. He's doing a good job.

"It's easy for us to sit here and say 'relax, kid, go get 'em.' He's already been through, in his mind, a regular season in spring training because he's trying to make the club. Guys are getting ready for the season and he's fighting for his baseball life.

"And then he missed a couple balls, he threw one in Seattle halfway up the bleachers. But he continued to work and he didn't become unsettled.

"Now he's starting to make plays and you can see it going the other way where he feels very good about himself."

And Red Sox fans are feeling very good about the guy who spent all of 2008 with the New York Yankees' minor league affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Pa. This guy couldn't help a New York team that didn't make the playoffs for the first time in 14 years?

That's fine with Sox fans, isn't it? It is the perfect comeback story to this incredible saga. Green's homer helped the Sox forge their biggest lead of the season over the team he couldn't crack a year ago.

While Lowrie continues to rehab, while Lugo remains on the bench, the current Red Sox shortstop is leaving them Green with envy in the Bronx.

Tom Caron is the studio host for Red Sox broadcasts on the New England Sports Network. His column appears in the Press Herald on Tuesdays.