Report: Red Sox giving Cubs hard time about managerial candidate

Sources connected with the Cubs say their managerial search could well be completed this week despite a strange turn of events involving the Boston Red Sox.

Reports say the Red Sox have not yet granted the Cubs permission to talk with their bench coach, Torey Lovullo, about the Cubs’ managerial position.

When the Cubs hired Theo Epstein away from the Red Sox two year ago, the two teams reportedly agreed on an arrangement whereby the Cubs would not “poach” employees away from the Red Sox, an agreement said to cover three years.

The Red Sox may be holding to the letter of the law, even though they did not hire Lovullo as their bench coach until October 2012, almost a full year after the Cubs hired Epstein.

The Cubs already have lost out on two possible replacements for fired manager Dale Sveum. Joe Girardi re-signed with the New York Yankees last month. Brad Ausmus, who interviewed with the Cubs last week, accepted the manager’s job with the Detroit Tigers over the weekend.

It appears Rick Renteria, the bench coach of the San Diego Padres is the front-runner for the job and that a decision could come as early as Friday. The Cubs also have interviewed A.J Hinch, Manny Acta, Eric Wedge and Dave Martinez.

Epstein said on Sept. 30, when he fired Sveum, that he hoped to have a successor in place by the general managers meetings, which get under way next Monday.

Roster maneuverings:The Cubs on Monday activated three players off the 60-day disabled list: pitchers Kyuji Fujikawa and Arodys Viczcaino and infielder Mat Gamel. The moves were procedural and increased the number of players on the 40-man roster to 37. The Cubs also did not extend qualifying offers to free agents Dioner Navarro, Kevin Gregg, Matt Guerrier and Scott Baker. This came as no surprise. The Cubs still can re-sign any of these players but they will not get draft-pick compensation if any of them decides to sign with another team.