Mike Celizic

It’s a dangerous game the Red Sox are playing, like maneuvering a cruise ship into port without a harbor pilot. But it’s the only way they can play it right now, because the ship is under way, and if somebody doesn’t take the helm, it’s going to be right back on the rocks on which it spent the 86 years before 2005.

Word is that Boston has entered the trade market in a big way, working a deal with the Marlins for pitcher Josh Beckett and third baseman Mike Lowell in return for two highly regarded minor leaguers.

Apparently, the deal was accomplished even though the team hasn’t had a general manager since Theo Epstein told team president Larry Lucchino to take his job and do it himself, since that’s what he seemed intent on doing anyway.

Actually, word in the Boston media and Red Sox blogs is that Jed Hoyer, the director of player development, is the man talking to potential trading partners and that he is one of four team officials, including Lucchino, who is running the show while the team continues to interview candidates for Epstein’s vacant seat.

Any time you have four people doing one person’s job, you have a very large potential for trouble. It’s what happens when committees get involved in building elephants — they end up with giraffes.

But the Red Sox have no choice. They have free agents at the corners — Kevin Millar and Bill Mueller — and in center field. The left fielder wants to go someplace else where he can just be Manny, and there’s a “help wanted” sign at second base. That’s five eighths, or 60 percent, of the starting offense. And, with free agent season officially upon us, it’s either act now or forget about next year.

So, while Lucchino conducts multiple rounds of interviews with G.M. candidates David Wilder, Jim Beattie and Jim Bowden, the Sox are grabbing what they can.

Beckett is an obvious deal. The free-agent market for pitchers is nearly as thin as Abe Lincoln’s broth made from the shadow of a chicken that was dying of starvation. And Beckett, who was the MVP of the 2003 World Series conquest of Team Steinbrenner, has a strong right arm. He also has delicate skin on the fingers of his right hand that has plagued him with blisters.

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