Updated 00:19, August the 22nd, 2008
The odd couple
Big Papi expresses his affection for Lil Pedro
Everyone involved admitted afterward that it was bad timing for Dustin Pedroia to let loose with an emotional outburst and get himself ejected from Tuesday night’s game in Baltimore.
It’s one of an extremely short list of things that the second baseman hasn’t done right this season.
Pedroia’s fiery leadership traits along with clear improvements across the board in his second season have been compelling. So compelling, in fact, that Sox captain Jason Varitek recently told an ESPN broadcasting team that he could picture Pedroia someday succeeding him as the next Sox player with a ‘C’ on his jersey.
It’s a surprising stance for a 5-foot-6, 170-pound second baseman who many casual observers felt wasn’t good enough to be a big leaguer, but teammates like David Ortiz understand the importance of their scrappy second baseman.
“He’s the best. He’s the best of the best. He’s the best thing that ever happened to this ballclub,” Ortiz said. “He’s a [expletive] great kid, dude. He’s the best. I love him. It’s great, man. I talk about Pedroia all the time to everybody because of how little he is and the way he plays the game.
“And I’ll be like, ‘Dude, seriously, he’s a bad little kid.’ Pedroia is always going to be like a 16- or 17-year-old because he’s little and he’s got a baby face, but he just rakes. Dude, he comes up with some lines, and you’ll be laughing. He hit a ball off the Green Monster once, and he came back to the dugout and said to me, ‘Hey, Big Punish, you know it’s going to rain, right?’ And I was like, ‘Why?’ He goes, ‘Didn’t you just see the lightning show?’”
Ortiz’s “bad little kid” is third in the American League with a .316 batting average, second in the AL with 95 runs scored and has markedly improved his skills from a stupendous Rookie of the Year season in 2007.
After racking up eight home runs and seven stolen bases last summer, the 25-year-old augmented his speed and strength during his offseason workouts, cracking 12 long balls and 12 steals this season.
