NEW YORK — Dustin Pedroia’s not the kind to stay idle. The Red Sox should force him to take some extra time now, because his left knee is still bothering him to the point he's not on the field after one quick visit to the disabled list.
The team is indeed considering another trip to the DL for Pedroia, who was out of the lineup Friday night for the opener of a three-game series with the Yankees — even after a scheduled off-day on Thursday.
Sox manager John Farrell indicated a decision would come within the next day. But it should be a no-brainer considering how important Pedroia is and how well Eduardo Nunez has played.
“Our goal was to get him some at-bats before this series,” manager John Farrell said Friday. “He’s shown that there’s been a little bit of a pushback in terms of the reaction to it. Some swelling, some inflammation, we’re holding him out today.
“I wouldn’t rule out the DL. .. We’ll see where this goes over the next 24 hours.”
Even if Pedroia does not land back on the DL, the fact the Red Sox are considering such a move suggests they’re far from out of the woods with their second baseman. There was never a belief that Pedroia’s knee issue would disappear, but this is something beyond what was expected.
Pedroia was activated from the disabled list Tuesday and has played in one game, as the designated hitter.
Boston Red Sox
Find the latest Boston Red Sox news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Boston.
Farrell has said before that the knee issue for Pedroia is volume-related. It follows that it may be more concerning considering Pedroia has not played the field in a game yet since coming back.
“We know he’s dealing with a cartilage issue. We still got some work to do,” Farrell said. “More importantly for Pedey is get as much information to him as we can, to put just allow him to get his arms around this further. Again, we go back to the work day in Boston, felt like that was — and he came out of that feeling great — and felt like that was a good test for him to get back on the field. But we’ve still got some work to do here.”
Any more missed time from Pedroia — which is the conservative way to go here — is only going to further underscore the importance of Nunez, who entered Friday hitting .420 in 11 games to begin his Red Sox career. In turn, it makes adequate play from Rafael Devers important as well, so the Sox don't find themselves in a situation where they wish Nunez could play two positions at once.
"We’ll mix and match as we’ve done," Farrell said. "We had Brock [Holt] there the other night with Eduardo over at third base. So the fact that we’ve got the versatility between Nunez and Holt, that goes a long way in kind of finding an alignment that might work best."
At this point, the Red Sox aren’t talking about Pedroia’s season being in jeopardy.
“Not the rest of the season,” Farrell said. “But currently, we’ve got to continue to get some work done to get back to where he feels he’s able to endure day to day, and we’re not quite there yet.”