CENTER FIELD :: Pedroia Played Through Playoffs With Broken Hand

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Pedroia Played Through Playoffs With Broken Hand

Turns out Dustin Pedroia's late season and playoff feats are even more fantastic than they look: Dustin played the entire postseason with a broken hand (and most of September to boot).

Dustin discovered he had cracked the hamate bone in his left hand during an MRI back on September 10th- though who knows how long he was playing with it broken before that. This type of bone fracture is fairly common amongst hitters- as well as golfers (the club rests against that bone) and even football players. Dustin had surgery on Tuesday to remove the bone (David Ortiz, Eric Hinske and Wily Mo Pena have all undergone the same surgery), and when the surgeon went to remove it the bone "crumbled".

hamate fracture on a golfer; the grip is somewhat similar

From the Herald article:

"Some days I would wake up and it would be hard to grip a bat," Pedroia said. "I changed my grip a little bit on the bat and went from there. It was just one of those things you know you have to take care of after the season, but you have to play through. A lot of guys have done that. You definitely don't want to shut it down and have surgery during the whole thing. We just had to find a way to fight through it."

He also noted that the pain was exacerbated by cold weather- and was at its most intense during Game 3 of the ALCS (versus Jake Westbrook):

"I struck out, checked my swing and was like, 'Oh my God!' " Pedroia said. "You just try and have the adrenaline take over, and take a lot of Tylenol. That seemed to help."

Immediately after the check swing against Westbrook

Dustin's in a soft cast now, and won't be able to use his left hand again until late this month or early December- but it will not affect him reporting to spring training.

"It won't affect my offseason workouts at all," he said. "I'll be coming in 100 percent and ready to roll."

Wonder how much longer that tiny, fragmented bone would have held up under the stress of Mighty Mouse's swing before crumbling inside his wrist before a surgeon could get to it? One reason it's good the World Series was a sweep and didn't extend out to seven games.

Next up for Dustin: taking batting practice with a torn ACL, shagging balls without the use of his right eye and baserunning with an amputated left foot.

Comments (7)

[ Piney61 ] says:
on November 10, 2007 1:01 AM

I'm just surprised as hell that nothing came out until now about it. Maybe Pedroia didn't want a big deal to be made of it. I mean imagine if it came out in the ALDS...I think he wanted to keep it under wraps because of the crazy that would ensue. More power to him.

[ Texas Gal ] says:
on November 10, 2007 1:08 AM

I cannot even imagine the media firestorm if this would have surfaced during the playoffs. Every interview question he got asked would be about that- and they'd bug every other player and coach about it as well. He clearly wasn't going to sit himself on the bench over it, and was more than willing to play through the pain... I'm guessing he figured why subject himself to that craziness.

Puts that .283 postseason BA with 10 RBIs in a whole new light.

Dude has one giant set of these.

[ Meg ] says:
on November 10, 2007 2:37 AM

This amazed me, particularly the fact that he kept it from the media and didn't use it as an excuse. He easily could have been like "hey, I've got a broken bone in my hand" when they were asking him why he wasn't hitting well early in the PS, but he chose not to and that speaks volumes about his character. I hope stuff goes well for him Monday, and the media can have their field day about it then.

[ Liza ] says:
on November 10, 2007 9:21 AM

Jeez, you put those batting statistics and then think how that's his glove hand... imagine what might have happened had he placed his hand wrongly and a line drive hit the bone? That could have been terrible.

Good for him for playing spectacularly, though. His batting slumped a bit in September (well, obviously, now that you have this factor), but his fielding was always tremendous for such a wee guy.

[ Caroline ] says:
on November 10, 2007 9:26 AM

To quote Julio Lugo (not something I normally do), that little midget is the MAN!

[ Texas Gal ] says:
on November 12, 2007 5:38 AM

Hear, hear- that cannot be said enough.

I do find it hilarious that people still continue to refer to him as 5'9". If he's 5'9", then I'm Santa Claus.

[ SoxDevil ] says:
on November 13, 2007 5:12 PM

Actually, if I recall, he did roll over on that hand diving for a ball at some point during the playoff run, and he was down on the field for a minute or two. I guess now we know why that reaction.

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