SEATTLE – Boston Red Sox Manager Bobby Valentine insisted Wednesday he wasn’t serious when he threatened to “punch” a radio talk-show host in the mouth.

Valentine said he made it clear he was kidding when he made the comment earlier in the day during an interview on Boston station WEEI with hosts Glenn Ordway and Michael Holley.

“Didn’t I go, ‘Ha, ha?’ ” the embattled Valentine asked. “I don’t think physical violence is necessary for 60-year-old people.”

Ordway, citing a newspaper report that Valentine arrived later than normal for a game last week in Oakland, asked if the manager had “checked out” on the season.

Valentine responded on the air:

“What an embarrassing thing to say. If I were there right now, I’d punch you right in the mouth. Ha, ha,” Valentine said. “How’s that sound? Sound like I checked out? What an embarrassing thing. Why would somebody even, that’s stuff that a comic-strip person would write. If someone’s here, watching me go out at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, working with the young players, watching me put in the right relief pitchers to get a win, putting on a hit-and-run when it was necessary, talking to the guys after the game in the food room — how could someone in real life say that?”

Meeting later with reporters in Seattle, Valentine said he took offense to Ordway’s question and explained that he arrived at the Coliseum in Oakland later than usual — but still three hours before the game — because he had picked up his son from the airport and got stuck in traffic.

“If anyone in this room or any other room I’ve been in in my life wants to question my integrity, I will ask someone to referee that situation,” he said.

Valentine added that if a writer “thought that was important and wanted to write seriously about it, they could have asked what the situation was and I would have been happy to tell them. No one asked the reasons.”

Valentine said he picked up his son from the San Francisco airport in the morning for his first visit on the road during “this lousy season.” The plane was late, then he had to return to his hotel to pick up his game information before driving over the Bay Bridge to the Coliseum.

“That was a mistake,” Valentine said. “There was traffic around the hotel and an accident on the freeway. I got there a little later than normal, not late. My workday starts at 4:30 p.m., in my opinion. I got to the stadium at 4:04 p.m.”

He said he had called in that night’s lineup at 2 p.m. and had checked with the trainer on the condition of injured players.

“To see my son for a couple more hours,” he said, “is more than worth the trade-off of sitting around in my underwear in the clubhouse for two hours.”

BLUE JAYS: Mired in a 12-game losing streak, Toronto left-hander Ricky Romero will skip his scheduled start Saturday at Boston and work on nine days rest Sept. 12 against Seattle.

YANKEES: The team held a meeting one day after losing sole possession of first place in the AL East. “We just wanted to talk about some of the things that we’re going through,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “The importance of you going through it, you’ve been through it, we’ll come out of it.”

ANGELS: Pitcher Jered Weaver returned to southern California for further examination of his bruised right arm and likely will miss his next start Friday against Detroit.