It's Youk's team now

A great deal of focus has been paid to left fielder Jason Bay’s ongoing effort to escape Manny Ramirez’s dreadlocked shadow.

But there’s a Red Sox player who  could be serving an even bigger role in finally banishing the Manny questions and doubts from the forefront this season: Kevin Youkilis.

The bald, bearded first baseman hopped right into the cleanup spot once Ramirez was shipped to Los Angeles, and the Boston offense didn’t skip even one beat with Youkilis at its heart.

Youk is no longer the feel-good OBP underdog of years past, and is instead a legitimate middle-of-the-order MVP candidate counted on for a .300 average, 30 home runs and 100 RBIs. With that in mind, Youkilis didn’t do anything differently while training over the winter and simply wanted to maintain.

“I just tried to get stronger in the offseason and just get my swing down and start feeling good while getting in baseball shape,” Youkilis said this week at the team’s spring training complex in Fort Myers, Fla.

The 29-year-old hit .319 with 11 home runs and 44 RBIs over the final two months of the season after the Ramirez trade, and clearly will be expected to continue raking with power in the middle of this season’s powerful lineup.

“Our offense was really good last year in the second half when we added Jason Bay to the lineup,” Youkilis said. “We have so many different guys that we can put in [the batting order], and we have so many guys that are going to mature and keep getting better.

“We have an unbelievable lineup from top to bottom, where a lot of other teams are going to look at us and go ‘Wow.’”