It takes a young reliever both a little bit of time and lot of positive performances -- and rightfully so -- to earn their stripes in Sox manager Terry Francona’s bullpen structure. The 24-year-old Daniel Bard had already amassed his first career save earlier in the season, and has pitched in some “high-leverage” situations for Boston since his promotion from Triple-A Pawtucket back on May 12.

But something was altogether different about Saturday night’s performance from Bard in a highly-entertaining, bullpen-exhausting 15-9 win over the Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park.

The heat-throwing phenom was finally pushed out of the rookie cocoon last night and handed a Bill James-style “win or lose” situation in the seventh inning after A) Justin Masterson and Manny Delcarmen couldn’t stabilize things in the sixth after getting the ball from John Smoltz, and B) Hideki Okajima ran into his own personal troubles in the seventh inning.

After letting up a solo homer to begin the inning and two straight hits that put the tying run on base, the potential go-ahead run came to the plate in the form of Miguel Olivo. Having already blown the large portion of a 9-1 early lead, the Royals had seized the game’s momentum and seemed to be ripping it right out of the hands of Boston’s bullpen men.

Enter Bard in a dire situation where the game was about to be protected or completely surrendered. The righty fanned Olivo on a nasty 84-mph slider that baffled the swinger with its biting two-plane action, and then froze pinch hitter Bryan Peña with a 99-mph fastball right on the edge of the strike zone.

Bard escaped the inning unscathed when he retired David DeJesus on a weak grounder to first base, and the threat was avoided.

“This was really his first situation where we needed him bad. This has got to be great for his confidence,” said Sox starter John Smoltz. “Every time he’s gone out, he’s gotten better and better. It’s fun to watch. You just feel a guy with that arm and that stuff is going to be tough to hit.”

The Sox offense scored three more runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, highlighted by Jason Varitek’s heady effort to his body as a screen while running up the first base line -- a move that caused Olivo to throw wild on a potential double-play grounder -- and Bard’s effect on the win had been cemented. Bard finished with 29 pitches and threw 25 of them for strikes and achieved a phenomenal 86 percent strike rate during the performance.

The rookie has learned to simply pound the zone with his nuclear stuff, and took that tried and true Red Sox philosophy to a different level on Saturday.

“He threw a lot of strikes,” said Francona. “He pounded the zone at a time when we really needed that. We wanted to stay away from Ramon (Ramirez) one more night. We wanted to win. We were getting that line moving a little too quick, and he settled everything down.

“As we get to know him -- the way you pitch -- you are deserving of innings like that. That wasn’t necessarily the way we wanted to line it up tonight, but (Bard) did a very good job.”

It felt as by necessity the rookie had been called upon in a situation that normally dictates the steady pitching hand of a veteran hurler, and he flourished in a way that his fellow bullpen members didn’t.

Saturday night’s two inning, three-strikeout performance for Bard stabilized a game teetering on the edge, and it also might be just looked at later this season as the day that the rookie took the first big step toward Tito’s circle of bullpen trust.

“I enjoy it. I think everybody likes pitching when the game is on the line,” said Bard. “It’s an opportunity to shine, and I’ve had experience closing in the minors. That’s about as close as you can get to a situation like that pressure-wise and adrenaline-wise. I like the feeling of getting in there with the game on the line, and coming out on top is even better.”

To his credit Bard steered away from questions about his role in the bullpen after the game, and placed himself into a group of six pitchers that can mix and match out of the pen on any given night. But none of those other pitchers feature quite the same arsenal as the former No. 1 draft pick.

“It was fun,” said Bard. “I’m not too concerned about the role that I’m pitching in. I know if I go out and do what I need to do, then I’m going to get a chance to pitch. We all want to see each other do well.”

There have been voices growing stronger around the Red Sox that it’s time to see what the kid with the 100-mph arm and the minor league closer’s experience can do in a late inning setup role with Boston. Perhaps even visions of a scenario much like the 1996 Yankees, when heir apparent Mariano Rivera was setting things up for an established relief artist in John Wetteland, seem realistic with electric arms like Bard and Papelbon.

The numbers jump off the page for Bard, particularly since pitching coach John Farrell used a bullpen session in Minnesota to teach the young reliever a different grip for the slider from hell that the pitcher now features.

Instead of the traditional curveball grip with his fingers along the seams, Farrell urged Bard to cross his fingers over four seams and throw the breaking similarly to the way he unleashes his fastball. The grip is similar to that of an old-fashioned cut fastball, and it’s added 5-mph to Bard’s breaking ball while complementing the 98-100 mph fastball he features every time out of the pen.

It’s the way that Farrell threw his slider during his pitching days with the Cleveland Indians and California Angels, and the results have been hard to ignore. Bard memorably fanned five batters in his first game out of the pen in Toronto following the Farrell slider tutorial, and fanned five batters in 2 1/3 innings on May 29.

“I didn’t have the conviction with it (when I was first called up) that I do have now,” Bard said. “I’m throwing it more like a fastball now. I’m holding it how a lot of guys hold their cutters and it’s moving like a slider with the way I throw it.

“I’m just throwing it right off my fastball with a four-seam grip with a little bit of tilt to it. I’m pretty happy with where it is right now.”

Bard has worked to gain consistency with the new grip and gain confidence in the pitch each time he heads to the mound, and the results have been there. In 14 games and 16 1/3 innings since changing around his slider mechanics, the righty has a 3.31 ERA with seven walks and a whopping 22 strikeouts. Even more amazingly, of Bard’s last 22 recorded outs as a reliever, 13 have come via the strikeout.

With visions of 100-mph fastballs and biting, darting 85-mph sliders dive-bombing off the plate, here are four more things that we learned last night:

JOHN SMOLTZ IS BEGINNING TO STAKE HIS CLAIM TO THE NO. 5 SPOT IN THE ROTATION

Sox manager Terry Francona termed Smoltz’s three starts leading into Saturday night as “weird,” and it was obvious that the best thing for the 42-year-old would be a clean outing with glimpses of his former Atlanta greatness.

Smoltz ended up providing prolonged flashes of the vintage 1996 Atlanta Braves model while protecting an early 9-1 lead through five innings of work, and only fell victim to a high pitch count that had the veteran knocked out after the fifth inning.

After stumbling in the first inning during his first start, getting a solid second start cut short by a rain delay in the fourth inning and coming out flat in his third start, Smoltz was finally able to put every element of his game together for a long stretch.

Smoltz spotted the low-90’s fastball with surgical precision, and kept setting hitters up with splitters and an improving slider before busting them back inside with a searing fastball to the arm-side of the strike zone. Smoltz finished with 97 pitches and five innings after several frames that he worked overtime to escape, and he finished with a single run allowed on four hits, no walks and a very Smoltz-like seven strikeouts on the evening.

The slider, in particular, was a weapon for Smoltz that he kept going to throughout the performance, and flashed a glimpse of what’s to come for the Olde Towne Team.

More importantly, Smoltz won his first game as a member of the Red Sox, captured his 211th career win in the Major Leagues and cemented his status as Boston’s No. 5 rotation member for the immediate future.

“I’m thankful for Boston, the Red Sox organization, for giving me a chance and believing that I can do what I said I was going to do,” said Smoltz. “I think the best is yet to come. I’ve been saying it, I’ve been feeling it inside. I just haven’t had a chance to smile after an outing yet, but (Saturday night) will make the All-Star break a lot more fun.”

ROY HALLADAY COULD BE A DIFFERENCE MAKER FOR ANY PLAYOFF TEAM BOLD ENOUGH TO TRADE FOR HIM

No less an authority than Peter Gammons has already said that there’s only a 20 percent chance that the Toronto Blue Jays ace is dealt prior to the July 31 trade deadline, and it appears doubtful that the Red Sox are going to be one of the heavy players for the throwback pitcher’s services.

The 32-year-old righty is tempting, however, because he’s averaged 18.6 wins per season over the last five healthy seasons that saw him make at least 30 starts, and he would immediately make the Sox an odds on World Series favorite with a top starting trio of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Roy Halladay.

It would take a bold decisive move -- and a boatload of minor league prospects that could effectively wipe out an entire generation of Boston’s young players -- and it would take gobs of free money to sign the gamer to a lucrative contract extension befitting such an elite talent.

Halladay is respected throughout the Sox clubhouse as just about the nastiest pitcher that they’re going to see during a baseball season, and Kansas City bench John Gibbons -- who managed Halladay in Toronto over the last five years -- sees a piece available that can be a “game changer” in the sports parlance of our times.

“He’s got to be the No. 1 guy available out there,” said Gibbons. “Roy just wants to win, man. He’s been at it awhile and he hasn’t had that chance. I think he’s open to (a trade).

“I’ll tell you what, he can put some team over the top but it’s going to cost you. Teams like the (Red Sox) and the Yankees that are close to the top and teams like the Phillies that won it last year -- and want to win it again this year. Those teams would make sense.”

Despite winning the 2003 Cy Youg, Halladay has never pitched in the playoffs, but Gibbons hoped to see the talented, competitive hurler bring his nonpareil stuff and trademark intensity into the postseason. Despite an amazing 43 complete games and five 200-plus inning seasons on his resume, Gibbons said that Halladay’s arm remains in good condition and should remain healthy for the immediate future.

Further proving that Halladay could be just what the doctor ordered for the end of the season and playoffs, the Toronto righty is a strong second-half pitcher with better post-All-Star break splits including a lower ERA, opponents batting average and strikeouts per nine innings.

Even more surprising after a full season of logging innings and high pitch counts, Halladay’s best month of the season throughout his career has been September when he puts up a 2.64 ERA and holds hitters to a .237 batting average. Gibbons looks at those numbers in the final weeks of the baseball season, and wonders aloud what the big righty could do in the playoffs.

“I would think he’d thrive on the playoffs,” said Gibbons. “If you think about it, a lot of those are high-pressure, low-scoring games in the playoffs because it’s tough to hit, so he’s a dream guy chucking for you.

“Physically, he works so hard all the time, and it’s actually like he catches his second wind in August. I remember Brad Arnsberg saying to me once that, ‘If we can just get to the playoffs, then he’s going to be unbelievable,’ because he just keeps getting better and better as the year goes on.”

The thoughts on the Toronto ace are all interesting things to ponder when wondering just how much of a future is worth mortgaging when a potential starting rotation trio of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Halladay could potentially be had for the playoffs.

KEVIN YOUKILIS IS GETTING HOT AGAIN AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME

The Sox first baseman had been locked into a prolonged slump since the first month of the season, and finally snapped out of an 0-for-15 funk on Thursday night. Proving that he wasn’t going to be just a one-game wonder when it came to slump-busters, Youkilis slammed a pair of home runs and showed a bit more aggressiveness at the plate in recent days. Youkilis has been through the ups and downs of a normal baseball season, so he’s not one to panic.

The two-time All-Star first baseman started out the season like an OPS-smashing house of fire, but has watched as the numbers have dropped down with each passing month leading into the All-Star Break.

He hit .244 during the entire month of June, and was mired in a 2-for-28 funk in July before busting out of it with an aggressive game-plan in Thursday night’s loss to the Royals. First the bearded infielder -- playing third base for the time being with regular 3B Mike Lowell on the shelf rehabbing from a sore right hip -- jumped on some early pitches to lift himself out of his slump, and matched career-highs with two home runs, four runs scored and 4 RBIs in Saturday’s seesaw victory over the Royals.

Youkilis had hit .234 in a 40-plus game string dating from May 10-June 20 during the last several weeks, but his recent surge has pushed the first baseman’s batting average back up to a .296 mark for the season. It still seems like a long way from the white-hot start that saw Youkilis hitting .395 with a 1.202 OPS after the first month of the season.

“I hadn’t had much success (lately) but today is a new day,” said Youkilis. “It’s one of those things where I wish I could hit well all year, but you deal with those little slumps during the year. You just have to move on.”

With only one more game remaining before a relaxing trip to St. Louis for his second straight All-Star appearance, the ultimate grinder appears to have moved right on to a head start on a meaningful second-half surge.

EACH NEW SOX ROOKIE SEEMS TO SEND ALL THEIR KEEPSAKE BASEBALLS TO THEIR MOM

Just a few weeks after George Kottaras smashed his first career big league home run and admitted afterward that he’d be sending the momentous ball to his mom in Canada, Aaron Bates admitted that he’ll probably be shipping his baseball up to his mom after racking up his first big league hit Saturday night.

The 25-year-old Bates had looked largely overwhelmed while fanning four times in his first six pro at bats against Major League pitching, but the sweet-fielding first baseman made his presence felt in the eighth inning with an RBI single right up the middle that supplied Boston with an insurance run.

Before even getting prompted by the Jumbotron, the Fenway Faithful were up and out of their seats while sharing some love for Bates -- who cleverly complimented Roman Colon for hanging a slider to him.

“It felt great,” said Bates, who said that his brother and his girlfriend were in the Fenway stands for the hit. “I came in late to the game and I didn’t even really have to think about it. I was telling (Tim Bogar) that I was glad he threw a slider right over the middle of the plate. I was glad about that. I didn’t really let it sink in (on the field).

“I’ve got the ball and I’m going to try and send it to my mom. She’ll really like that.”