The Colorado Rockies have acquired Marco Scutaro from the Boston Red Sox for Clayton Mortenson, Jim Bowden of ESPN.com reports (Troy Renck of the Denver Post  reported deal was close first).

Both sides had been talking about the deal for the last few days with one of the issues being how much of Scutaro’s $6mm salary Colorado would take on which now appears to be all of it.

The deal may pave the way for Boston to sign Roy Oswalt as they were looking to shed payroll to sign him.

Scutaro posted a career high .299 avg in 445 plate appearances last season.

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe notes that Nick Punto and Mike Aviles will likely platoon at shortstop instead of bringing up defensive wiz Jose Iglesias from the minors initially at the start of the season.

Image taken by Keith Allison and used under the Creative Common License Agreement.