Bobby Valentine joined WEEI's The Big Show this afternoon for his weekly appearance and had a positive outlook on Dustin Pedroia's return.
"We just had a meeting before I came here, [GM Ben Cherington] and I and Dustin. He’s on the mend. He heals pretty quickly. He’s a determined guy," said Valentine. "I don't think he's going to have to swing for a day or two, but I think he’ll be back a lot sooner than projected."
I love Pedroia and everything, but I don't know how much his determination has to do with whether a tear in a muscle in his hand heals. But whatever you need to tell yourself, Bobby.
If he's only out a day or two -- as opposed to the month that was being tossed around -- that would obviously be tremendous. As I said this morning, should he be out long, I'd prefer to see Jose Iglesias be brought up and Aviles pushed over to second. Of course, if Dustin is only out a couple of days there's no point -- we'll just have to deal with a couple games of Nick Punto.
We should be able to survive. We're 2nd in the AL in runs even though we've lost roughly 16,728 days to the DL so far. Pedroia has a big part in that, of course, but the point remains that there is some more talent in this lineup. If the pitching can hold up, we should be OK through this injury.
