It’s been a long wait for Dustin Pedroia to get back to his old self, and it’s fair to wonder if that day will ever come.
Since the start of the 2018 season, the Boston Red Sox second baseman has played in a combined nine games, with periodic stints on the injured list due to his knee keeping him out of action.
After playing in six games earlier this April, Pedroia went back on the IL, and now is set to begin a rehab assignment with Double-A Portland. Pedroia recently indicated that he won’t have any regrets if he no longer is able to play, but his manager doesn’t think the 35-year-old is at the end of the road.
During his weekly interview on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria,” Alex Cora gave an update on Pedroia.
“Honestly he’s in a good place mentally. Physically he feels a lot better,” Cora said. “He’s hitting batting practice, moving around, running. We’ll see Thursday, from Thursday on. I don’t know if this is the last shot or the last try, I don’t see it that way. I think he understands a little bit more about what he needs to do with the brace and the spikes and everything that is going on. One thing for sure, and we talk about it, this is where he’s at. He wants to be an everyday player. And he’ll go down there and he’ll get his repetitions and he’ll play back-to-back-to-back-to-back games and the off day and all of that.
“Well, it depends, it all depends on how he feels,” Cora said when asked if Pedroia might have a lengthier rehab assignment than normal. “But he understands that when he comes here, it’s hard to maneuver a roster when he’s only available for two and an off day and then other guys are banged up. That’s the nature of 162, we can map it out perfectly that we’ve got Brock (Holt) and we’ve got (Eduardo) Nunez and we’ve got Pedroia. … But all of the sudden Nunez, his back hurts. All of the sudden Brock is on the IL. So that’s the nature of the season, and it’s not perfect. We can script it for 162, it doesn’t work that way. So he understands, not only for him, but also for the team.”
Getting Pedroia back will, if nothing else, likely provide a jolt to the Red Sox. And if he can get back to the form he provided for many years, it will provide an on-field boost to a team searching desperately for some consistency.
