When the Red Sox head to London for a two-game series with the Yankees June 29-30, the games won’t air on NESN. Both are nationally televised, the first on Fox and the second on ESPN.
That means Jerry Remy won’t make the trip overseas, which is just fine with him.
The Red Sox color analyst has never been to London. But the well-established homebody doesn’t feel the urgency to see Big Ben and Parliament anyway.
“The only thing I’d want to see over there is Abbey Road Studios,” said Remy with a chuckle. “If I go there I don’t even care about anything else.”
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Remy will miss that chance to experience some history of the Beatles first-hand, and he’ll miss two relatively important Red Sox games as Major League Baseball attempts to expand its reach to across the Atlantic.
But one of the blessings of this season so far is that there’s no other reason to talk about Remy missing games.
After suffering a relapse of lung cancer last August, he left the booth to receive treatment and missed the Red Sox’ run to the World Series title.
He announced he was cancer-free in November, and just last Thursday received similarly good news after his latest scan came back clean.
“Knock on wood, I can’t complain about anything right now,’’ said Remy, 66. “I do have my energy, and I was a little concerned about that in spring training going through this [treatment]. But I’ve been on some road trips and I feel fine.
“I feel tired right now because we got back at 5:30 in the morning from Minnesota,’’ he said Thursday afternoon. “But that’s just part of travel.”
Remy is traveling less this year. He’s scheduled to do 85-90 games, including at least 30 in a three-man booth with play-by-play voice Dave O’Brien and fellow analyst Dennis Eckersley.
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Soon, Remy will have a break of more than two weeks, what with the London series and the All-Star break coming up.
“Being off some of the road trips certainly helps, and getting the schedule down to a workable number has really helped me this year with being able to get enough rest,” he said. “I feel great, I really do. I don’t know what it sounds like on the air. I don’t know if I sound like I’m out of breath or anything like that, but I feel good doing it anyway.”
Remy will be in the booth with O’Brien and Eckersley this weekend for the series with the Blue Jays.
“I never have been a fan of three-man booths until we got hooked up with this one,’’ said Remy, who has known Eckersley since the early 1970s when they were both minor leaguers. “This one totally works, I think. Neither one of us has a big ego and we both give each other the space that we need. Dave does a good job navigating both of us through the game. I really look forward to it.”
It’s nice to be talking to Remy about what he’s seen from the Red Sox rather than what he’s missed. For the record, he’s a believer that their recent hot streak — they have won 7 of 8, including 2 of 3 against the red-hot Twins — is an indicator that the champs have finally found their footing after stumbling to start the season.
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“I think this last series was pretty big in Minnesota,’’ said Remy. “I was anxious to see that series because the Twins had the best record in baseball going in there, and we actually outplayed them throughout the whole series. Could have won all three, really.
“That was a good sign, and that lightens up the schedule for the next week with Toronto coming in and then Chicago, and hopefully they can continue on this roll they’re on. I think things are starting to fall into place.”
While the Red Sox face an uphill climb in the standings — they were 6½ games behind the Yankees and 3½ behind the Rays in the American League East as of Thursday — Remy believes they will be in contention for the division title in the stretch run.
“Nothing’s changed,’’ Remy said. “They feel the same way they did about each other last year, they still feel the same way about their talent, and I think they’re going to have a run that gets them right back there with Tampa Bay and New York.
“New York has scared me a little bit how they’ve been able to grab this lead with so many guys injured, but the Red Sox are going to be the really good team we expected in the second half of the season.
“Listen, it’s tough to repeat a perfect season, and basically that’s what last year was. Nothing went wrong. That’s almost impossible. Now that they’ve got a little bit of adversity, we’ll see how they fight through it. But knowing the people in the room, I believe they know how to do that.”
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Chad Finn can be reached at finn@globe.com.