Dustin Pedroia “back to 100%” after hand surgery

It’s been a while since Dustin Pedroia has been fully healthy. The diminutive second baseman has suffered from several injuries since 2012 but, showing himself to be one of the toughest players in baseball, has played through them admirably. However, for the first time in his illustrious career, Pedroia’s offensive performance slipped to league average this season as he slashed .278/.337/.376 with fantastic defense at second base. Luckily, it appears that the Pedroia of 2014 will not be the Pedroia of the future as the 31 year old spoke very optimistically about his health in a recent interview with WEEI.

"Now that it’s fixed, it’s night and day. I can already tell that. There’s a lot of IOU’s to hand out to people, so I’m pretty excited about it. I feel great. I’m back to a hundred percent. I’m doing all my lifts and everything. My rehab’s going good. I’m full strength and I’m pretty excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve been myself. It’s going to be a lot of fun next year."

Pedroia has always been supremely confident but this is good news regardless. The Red Sox’ lineup struggled in 2014 and a fully healthy Pedroia would be a tremendous asset to a lineup which is already looking considerably improved. Pedroia is a career .299/.366/.444 and, though he likely has his best years behind him, it’s reasonable to think he could approach those numbers next season if he’s fully healthy. The concern going forward is keeping Pedroia, who goes all-out whenever he’s on the field, from re-injuring himself but this is still incredibly encouraging.