If this is it for Red Sox 2B Dustin Pedroia, thank you for everything

If this is really it for Dustin Pedroia, the Red Sox second baseman should be remembered as a legend for the city of Boston. Thank you for everything.

It all started in 2006. Well, sort of. Dustin Pedroia didn’t exactly have a great start to his career, as he would hit only .191 in his debut season with a .561 OPS. He would only have a 98 plate appearances, meaning it wasn’t going to qualify as his rookie year. The Boston Red Sox weren’t anything special that year either, as they’d finish in 3rd place with 86 wins.

2007 was a different story though, as the Red Sox would win 96 games, finishing first in the AL East. One of the more iconic Pedroia moments would happen that October, when Pedey hit a 2-run shot over the monster to extend Boston’s lead to 5-2 in the 7th inning. It was Game 7 of the ALCS against Cleveland, and the Red Sox would wind up winning that game, the series, and eventually sweeping the Colorado Rockies to win the World Series.

Pedroia would be named Rookie of the Year, as he’d have a slash line of .317/.380/.442 with an OPS of .823. What a year for the kid. Forget 2006, Dustin Pedroia’s career was off to a hot start.

It would only get better from there, as he would have an even better 2008, hitting with an OPS of .869 and bringing home a Silver Slugger, a Gold Glove, and an MVP trophy. He’d get 2 more consecutive All-Star game appearances in 2009 and 2010, finishing 9th in the MVP voting in 2011, and taking home another Gold Glove.

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He’d get another All-Star appearance in 2013, placing 7th in the MVP voting and bringing home the 3rd Gold Glove of his career. All of that, to go along with yet another World Series ring,  the second of his career, and I’d say one of the most special rings any player could ever have. That 2013 Red Sox team was special, it was one of a kind, and one that rallied around a horrible tragedy to bring joy and happiness to a city that needed it. Pedroia was a huge part of that team and will forever be remembered for what he did that year.

Pedey would have 4 more solid seasons before hitting the DL in 2018, missing out on almost the whole year and having to pretty much become a part-time coach for the 2018 World Series champs. It was hard to watch Pedroia sit through everything that happened last year but it gave the chance for the other young players to get their shot, and it payed off.

I sit here today, writing this blog in agony. I never wanted to write this kind of a blog, but here I am having to do so. Dustin Pedroia is unsure of his future in the game of baseball. He’s not entirely sure if retirement is coming yet, but its certainly an option.

He tried everything he could to come back from his knee injury that’s been haunting him for the last 2 years. He lasted only six games this season before landing back on the injured list when his knee started bothering him again. He’s been trying this whole time to make a comeback, but every time it looks like he’s about to come back up to the major league team, he has a setback. It seems that this was the final straw.

"“The last game I played, the pain was kind of to the point I had to tell the trainer I had to come out. It was a tough day,” Pedroia explained during Monday’s press conference televised on NESN. “Next day, I woke up and it wasn’t any better. It’s too a point now where my knee is not allowing me to play every day.”"

He even went on to add that he has reached the point that walking is a struggle, but he doesn’t want to undergo another surgery as that would affect the quality of his life. So surgery isn’t an option for him, but neither is announcing his retirement…yet.

This really hurts to see, as Pedroia was the first player I discovered when I became a fan of baseball and was a guy that put his heart and soul into this team from the moment he came up, all the way to now.

If this is really it for Dustin, he shouldn’t be remembered as a guy who was too injury prone to stay on the field by the end of his career. He should be remembered as someone who played his heart out, as someone who ate, slept, and breathed baseball, and someone who was the face of the Red Sox for over a decade. That’s what Pedroia should be remembered as, and I will forever be thankful that he was a part of the Boston Red Sox.

I definitely would love to see him stick around the team and become some sort of coach or consultant for the organization, as that definitely seems like something he would do. But right now, he’s going to sit back and come to terms that his career has pretty much come to an end. It wasn’t the ending he or any of us wanted, but that doesn’t take away a single thing he did for this franchise. The Dustin Pedroia era is over. But boy, was it a good one.