After a report from Karl Ravech yesterday stated that Dustin Pedroia would “likely miss a month” because of a right thumb injury, general manger Ben Cherington confirmed that Pedroia had suffered a torn adductor muscle in his right thumb.
Pedroia remains hopeful that a trip to the DL can be avoided and that he can play through the injury, but the Red Sox second baseman acknowledged that if he is unable to hit with a protective brace for the thumb, he probably will be out for “three or four weeks.”
“Right now we’re waiting to see how I feel the next couple of days,” Pedroia said. “My swelling has gone down, the bruising in my thumb has gone down, so we’ll just wait and see if I can play.”
“I just have to wait for [the muscle] to [swell] down, and see if I can hit with a sprint or a brace or something and we’ll go from there. Right now, I’m just trying to do all the treatment I can and hopefully, it’s not that long (before I can return).”
Pedroia told report Sean McAdam that the injury was originally suffered during an at-bat three weeks ago, but was re-aggravated during the fifth inning of Monday’s matinee against the Tigers while making a diving stop on the outfield grass to rob Detroit’s Danny Worth of a base hit. He was pulled from the game following the play.
Kevin Youkilis suffered the same injury in 2010 and ultimately required season-ending surgery causing him to miss the team’s final 56 games. However, Youkilis suffered tendon damage, which is the reason he was required to get surgery. Cherington reassured that Pedroia has no tendon damage.
It should come as no surprise that Pedroia, who had started all 48 of the team’s games until sitting out Tuesday, wants to fight through the injury and stay off the DL. Sox fans have gotten to know that he’s extremely competitive and always wants to be on the field and we’ve seen him play through pain before.
Hopefully the thumb brace experiment will go smoothly.
