Dustin Pedroia isn’t calling it quits just yet, but his Major League Baseball future is very much uncertain.
The Boston Red Sox on Monday placed Pedroia on the 60-day injured list as issues with his injured knee mount. Pedroia underwent complete cartilage restoration surgery on his knee following the 2017 season and has played just nine games dating back to the 2018 campaign.
Pedroia pulled himself out of his latest rehab outing Friday, which seemed to serve as a wake-up call for the 35-year-old. He’ll now take an indefinite break from baseball and rehab activities, a decision he opened up about during a press conference Monday.
“The pain was kind of to a point where I had to tell the trainer, ‘Listen, man. I gotta come out.’ Tough day. I knew I had tough days throughout this process,” Pedroia said. “The next day I woke up and it wasn’t any better, so it’s to a point now where my knee is not allowing me to play every day. It’s taken a while to realize that and I’ve tried so many things from braces to orthotics to rehab methods to seeing different doctors to, you know, every type of treatment possible. So I’m at a point right now where I need some time and that’s where my status is.”
Pedroia noted he currently is not considering surgery, which was recommended to him after last season. The four-time All-Star wasn’t able to lean one way or the other in terms of ever returning to the diamond, but he’ll use this time off to evaluate the situation.
“I’m not sure,” Pedroia said when asked if he’ll ever play again. “That’s the part of the time right now is figuring that out. I’ve been lucky to be with this organization and to deal with the people in our training room and our doctors and have the best manager, coaching staff, front office. They’ve been leading me in the right direction the whole way and it’s unfortunate the type of injury that I had and I have. So I’m just trying to listen to everybody and try to do the right thing. They care about me and you can’t say that about everybody or every team or things like that. Everybody here truly cares about me and I love them for it.”
Pedroia continued: “I think time will go by and I’ll know more about it. I haven’t had a day off in a long time. Every day I wake up and I do some sort of rehab to — to do anything. I haven’t sat down and thought about something like that or anything, I just know that right now I need a break from just the everyday stresses of dealing with what I’m dealing with and that’s it.”
