Red Sox Injury Updates: Dustin Pedroia, Will Middlebrooks, Clay Buchholz

With as many hurt players as the Red Sox have, it's no surprise that injury news comes in bunches. Today, we've received one such bunch.

First up is Dustin Pedroia, now officially on the disabled list after trying to dodge it for the past month.

The official word is that this new injury is a hyper-extended thumb, with an injury to the volar plate. For those of us who are not medical doctors, or even are medical doctors but haven't brushed up on their thumbs recently, the upshot of this all seems to be "same thumb, different part."

The treatment is as simple as immobilizing the thumb for a few weeks. For Pedroia, however, it will be weeks of frustration, as the second baseman just can't seem to catch a break this season. The only thing Sox fans can hope for is that his production recovers after this injury faster than it did after the last.

Will Middlebrooks, meanwhile, doesn't have weeks to worry about. While the nagging hamstring injury will keep him out for at least tonight, the third baseman seems optimistic. Middlebrooks told ESPN's Joey McDonald that he felt he was at about 75 percent, and said to Peter Abraham that he was "hoping" to be back in the lineup tomorrow.

The Sox will certainly be hoping for that too. In the meantime, they'll have to make do with Mauro Gomez, the third baseman that isn't, and Pedro Ciriaco, whose clutch performances don't seem likely to extend beyond spring training.

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Peter Abraham also adds that Clay Buchholz threw a bullpen before today's game, and should be expected back by the team's second trip through the rotation. That's a reasonably quick bounce-back from hospitalization, and should bring the team's rotation decision to a head rather early on. While Buchholz' season as a whole still looks like a disaster, given the way he was pitching before injury, there's plenty of reason to hope for quality pitching when he finally returns.

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Finally, there's Carl Crawford, who said today that his elbow still wasn't at 100 percent, but that he feels ready to come back to the majors after the All-Star break.

Despite his comments, the news on Crawford's elbow was generally positive today, as he passed another painless game in the outfield, including making a throw all the way home without a cutoff man. Crawford will have a lot to prove when he does make his return, but his "ceiling" as it were should by rights be as high as ever. Hopefully he can put in a few good months and help the Sox wins the game and the fans to feel better about that particular contract.