NEW YORK — The season is two weeks old, yet the Red Sox are already accustomed to dealing with injuries. But the one player they can least afford to lose was not on the field Sunday night. Second baseman and de facto captain Dustin Pedroia was scratched from the lineup due to continued and increasing soreness in his left wrist, which he injured on April 4. Manager John Farrell said before the Red Sox’s 3-2 loss to the Yankees that he wouldn’t have a more detailed prognosis for Pedroia until Pedroia returned to Boston for an examination on Monday’s off-day.
Pedroia was hurt when he landed on the wrist as the Brewers’ Carlos Gomez slid into him to break up a double play in the eighth inning of the Red Sox’s home opener. Pedroia, who has played in at least 139 games in six of his seven full big league seasons, played through the discomfort and entered Sunday leading the American League in at-bats with 55. But he was just 5-of-36 since the injury and was scratched Sunday after admitting he was sore following early batting practice. “I think there’s probably a direct correlation (between the injury and his slump),” Farrell said. “There hasn’t been an event over the past couple of days that have brought this onset (of symptoms) even further. It’s just been everyday play. The soreness increases and it’s got to be checked out.”
Playing with various aches and pains is nothing new to Pedroia, who tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb in the 2013 season opener but missed just two games and didn’t undergo surgery until after the season. Pedroia’s durability, scrappiness at the plate and in the field and vocal demeanor in the locker room has turned him into the face of the Red Sox. Now the Sox must hope they won’t have to be without those traits for more than a day or two.