Dustin Pedroia Played The Final Weeks Of The Red Sox Season With A Knee Injury That Required Surgery Yesterday
See, this is what I love about Dustin Pedroia. It’s unfair to throw Xander Bogaerts under the bus here when this story has nothing to do with him, but he’s the first name that came to my mind as a polar opposite of this situation. Back in June, Bogaerts had this to say.
“You have to tough it out. It’s not easy, trust me, it’s not easy. I know I’m tired. I can feel I’m tired. I don’t have no legs. I’m throwing the ball over there with no legs. I’m hitting with nothing right now. Most of my hits have been infield hits and bloopers, stuff like that. It’s not solid contact lately.”
He was TIRED, and venting about that to the media. Tired. Dustin Pedroia was out there with a fucking torn meniscus, and we never heard a word about it until the day after he had surgery to repair it. The Boston Globe reported that Pedroia suffered the injury to his knee in that series in Toronto in mid-September. So, in the 31 games leading up to that series, Pedroia hit .433 with a .983 OPS. In the 21 games after that Toronto series, Pedroia hit .228 with a .620 OPS, including the three postseason games against Cleveland.
He was playing with an injury that required surgery, his performance was clearly suffering as a result of that injury, and we never heard a peep out of Pedroia. This is a player that carries himself with a great deal of pride, and when he had an out to excuse his subpar performance in the final weeks of the season and in the postseason, he didn’t take it. He did the same exact thing in 2013. He played through an injury that nobody knew he had throughout Boston’s World Series run that year, and had thumb surgery two weeks after the World Series ended.
You know, I’ve wondered about the leadership that this team will have without David Ortiz, but I think they’ll be just fine when they still have a leader like Pedroia in that Red Sox clubhouse.