Dustin Pedroia likely needs surgery

Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia has played all season long with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his thumb. That's not hyperbole, either: he sustained the injury on Opening Day, and has still appeared in 157 of Boston's 158 games in spite of it. While we haven't heard much about it since first discovering that it existed and that Pedroia planned to play through it, WEEI's Rob Bradford mentions that Pedroia will likely need surgery to repair the damage, as time alone hasn't done the job.

That's news in the sense we've heard very little about Pedroia's condition, even if it isn't necessarily unexpected that he'll need to go under the knife in order to once again fix a hand injury -- again, he tore his UCL so much that it can't be damaged any further. What's been apparent, though, even sans updates, is that Pedroia is going to keep on playing until there are no games left to play, which at this point means until the Red Sox win or are eliminated in the postseason.

As Bradford notes, Pedroia went through a similar spot in the 2007 playoffs, when his hamate was cracked and the potential for it to fully break was very real. The difference this time around is that Pedroia can't cause anymore damage to the area, as it's already as torn as can be, and it's all about his pain tolerance:

"It's going to be the same until it gets fixed," he [Pedroia] said. "So I'm going to play and then they'll fix it."

Considering his 114 OPS+ is right around his career levels, it's fair to say he's got this one under control.

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