MVPedroia

By: Ryan Plinske

Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 8:06pm

On November 6th Dustin Pedroia became only the second Red Sox second baseman to win the gold glove award. The last one to do it was Doug Griffin back in 1972.

Dustin Pedroia has lived up to all the hype and expectations after an extraordinary rookie season. Pedroia’s fielding percentage was second behind Oakland Athletics Mark Ellis. Ellis had a .993 fielding percentage and Pedroia followed with a .992 fielding percentage. Even though Ellis had a higher fielding percentage the award was unanimously given to Pedroia for his superb range, agility, and sure hands for fielding double plays. Pedroia also had 6 errors in 157 games with a total of 733 chances. Pedroia ranked third in assists (448), fourth in total chances (733), fifth in double plays (101), and sixth in putouts (279). The last time Red Sox Nation saw this kind of play at this position was back in the day of Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr.

Dustin Pedroia better have enough room in his trophy case because he just may also inherit the 2008 AL MVP award as well. Pedroia may not be the biggest guy in the big leagues at 5’6” but he sure hits with the best of them. Pedroia was second in the American League with a .326 batting average, led the league with 118 runs, 54 doubles, and tied for first place in hits (213) with the free swinging outfielder in Seattle, Ichiro Suzuki. He has at times been called the catalyst of the Red Sox offense with his numerous clutch at-bats and hits but what makes this guy more valuable than any other player in the game is the size of this kids heart. Throughout his whole life people have been telling him he’s too small to play baseball or just too small to do anything...Ozzie Guillen once called him a jockey when he batted cleanup against the pale hose late in the season and tallied 9 straight hits without recording an out.

Slowly he is becoming one of the most feared hitters in the league and a fan favorite all over the city. If he keeps this going he'll be a hall of famer for sure and achieve many gold gloves and MVP's in his time.