Red Sox vs. Royals lineups: Pedroia out due to 'family matter'

The Red Sox will have to go without the red hot Dustin Pedroia Sunday night as they try to take a series win against the Kansas City Royals.

It's obviously not great timing to lose their second baseman (even if just for a day) fresh off a ridiculous hit-streak, but of course family comes before baseball. All the best to Pedroia, whatever it is that's happening.

It would be nice to see his replacement, Brock Holt, slotted in somewhere other than leadoff given that he's got a cool .317 OBP, but this is the nature of short-term substitutions for the Red Sox in the John Farrell era: one-for-one, with maintaining the rest of the order put ahead of optimization, for better or for worse.

The Sox will be hoping for a better return to the rotation from Eduardo Rodriguez then they got from Steven Wright in the first game of the series. Unlike Wright, the last we saw Rodriguez, he was in the midst of an excellent stretch of pitching dating back to mid-July when he got the call back to the majors. In fact, he might well have had the best game of his season, or even career the last time he took the mound had he not been knocked out by the injury that cost him nearly two weeks. If that Rodriguez can make a clean return tonight, and get the Sox a series win, it will go a long way towards putting that three-game losing streak solidly in the rearview mirror.

First pitch is at 8:08 p.m. ET because ESPN is weird with broadcasts on...well, ESPN, obviously, and WEEI.