Red Sox place Dustin Pedroia on the 10-day disabled list; Activate Addison Reed

Today is a day of some good news and some bad news for the Red Sox roster. The good news is that new setup man Addison Reed is in town and the bullpen has a shiny new weapon at the back end. The bad news is that, to make room for Reed on the roster, they placed their second baseman on the 10-day disabled list. Dustin Pedroia will be on the shelf for at least a week or so with knee inflammation.

This is obviously bad news for the Red Sox. While the entire offense was slumping over the last few weeks, Pedroia was one of the few hitters who seemed able to come through with the big hit when it was needed. Now, they’ll be without his bat in the lineup. The move is retroactive to July 29, so Pedroia will be eligible to return next Tuesday for the start of the team’s series against the Rays. His return at that time would be huge for Boston, as it’s the beginning of an important five-game stretch against Tampa and New York. It’s not at all clear he’ll be able to return at that point just yet, though.

While Pedroia is out, you can expect to see a lot of Eduardo Nuñez at second base. The new infielder has provided a big spark at the top of the lineup and doesn’t represent a huge downgrade at the plate, though in terms of true talent level there’s probably a hit being taken. The real step back will be taken in the field. Pedroia, of course, is one of the very best defensive second baseman in baseball. Nuñez....is not. This isn’t a total killer, but on the whole the Red Sox suffer a big loss here.

As for Reed, well, we’ve already covered what he means for the bullpen. Just by virtue of everyone being able to move down a role, his addition should make a big impact on the Red Sox. And that’s without even getting into his talent level, which is quite significant. For now, the Red Sox have an extra pitcher on staff as it was assumed Austin Maddox would be optioned to make room for Reed. Maddox remains for now, but we should probably expect him to be optioned for either Deven Marrero or Tzu-Wei Lin in the next few days. (It can’t be Marrero, as he was just demoted on July 28. He has to wait ten days to come back up unless someone else goes on the disabled list.)