Projo Sox Blog

FT. MYERS, FL -- Dustin Pedroia has a message for Red Sox fans worried about his lower ab injury:

"Tell them to calm down. We'll handle this. Tell them that," he said.

The reigning AL MVP was in good spirits this morning, playing down the abdominal strain that forced him to suddenly leave the World Baseball Classic before last night's loss against Puerto Rico.

If this had happened during the regular season, he would likely have played through it, he said.

"Probably. Unless they put me in a straitjacket and held me down, I'd play through anything," Pedroia said.

Pedroia suffered the injury, originally though to be an strained oblique, while taking swings yesterday. He had felt some soreness when hitting off a tee on Friday, but not thought much of it.

Then yesterday, the hitting coach was flipping him the ball, and Pedroia took one swing and felt it grab. The hitting coach immediately said to go see a trainer, and Pedroia immediately stopped swinging.

"I felt it one time, and they kind of went in straight panic mode and got me out of there," he said.

Pedroia didn't want to abandon his WBC teammates. Teammate Kevin Youkilis prevailed on him to think about the bigger picture.

"I was going to try to play, and then Youk calmed me down, said 'shut it down, get it looked at. We've still got three more weeks, you'll be fine.'"

"[Team doctor Tom] Gill and [trainer] Paul Lassard were at my place last night in Ft. Myers when I got home and they examined me there. It's actually not my oblique at all, it's my lower part of the ab, just a little strain, nothing to be that concerned about. We'll get some treatment and we'll be fine," Pedroia said.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona breathed a sigh of relief when he learned it was just a strained abdominal, not the more problematic oblique muscle. The Red Sox were driving back from a game in Ft. Lauderdale when the word first came through on Pedroia. Soon Francona, general manager Theo Epstein, and the trainers for the Red Sox and the U.S. team were soon involved in frantic conference calls on the bus.

"I was excited when we found out what it was. You start messing with an oblique, and we've all seen it: we say it'll be a week to ten days, and it turns into two weeks and three weeks. You just don't know, those are hard things to deal with," he said.

Coaches and front office staffs have fretted all spring about their players away in the WBC, particularly the pitchers. Francona has said several times that it is tough to play baseball full-speed, in international competition, when players are still gearing up from the offseason. But he stressed that the way the WBC staff responded yesterday was excellent.

Pedroia said the injury didn't occur because of the WBC.

"This could have happened to me here in Ft. Myers. I don't think me getting hurt was because of the WBC, I don't think it was because of that."

That said, he did notice that the accelerated pace of this spring wore him down.

"It's tough playing nine innings right away. Usually you play five or six innings and get three at bats," he said.

The Red Sox' diminutive sparkplug was more inclined to blame the injury on his massive musculature - tongue in cheek, of course.

"When you have a physique like this and you're shredded and everything, something might happen," Pedroia joked.

Pedroia was also sporting a new haircut - completely shaven.

"It's sick. I just shaved it up. Cleaned it up a little bit," he said.

He stressed again that this is not going to affect the regular season whatsoever.

"I don't think it's going to linger. I'll take care of it and get it ready and get ready for the season. It won't be an issue," he said.

 Tags  Dan Barbarisi Dustin Pedroia Kevin Youkilis World Baseball Classic

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