Sunday Morning Quick Hits: Dustin Pedroia, Madison Bumgarner

Dustin Pedroia scratched from Saturday’s rehab appearance

For the second time this week, the Red Sox and Dustin Pedroia had a plan in place to get the second baseman in three straight games for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs as part of his rehab. For the second time this week, the second baseman was scratched in the midst of the three-game stretch. The first time was early in the week when the Sea Dogs were at home. It rained up in Portland and the Red Sox didn’t want to take a chance with wet field conditions. There was rain in Trenton area on Saturday where the Sea Dogs are playing this weekend, but that wasn’t mentioned as a reason for his latest scratch. Instead, according to Christopher Smith of Masslive, Dave Dombrowski said via email that this latest scratch was due to minor knee soreness.

The word to hang your hat on here if you’re looking to stay optimistic is “minor,” but it’s hard to feel too good about this. Pedroia has obviously been dealing with knee injuries for a few years now, and over the last two seasons he’s just had setback after setback with this knee. Remember, he was activated off the injured list early in April but was quickly placed back on. They don’t want to rush him back, of course, but he’s now halfway through his rehab clock. After 20 days the team either has to activate him or re-start the rehab clock with another short IL stint. It’s been a little frustrating to watch all of this play out, but more than that it’s just been sad. A lot of people think this is the end for Pedroia, and while I’m not ready to call for that just yet it’s hard to argue the possibility after what’s happened the last few years. It was never supposed to end like this.

Madison Bumgarner puts Red Sox on no-trade list

The big news around the league on Saturday was that Madison Bumgarner submitted his eight-team no-trade list to the Giants, and the league’s best squads were on the list. That included the Red Sox, who were joined by the Braves, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals. That list comes via Ken Rosenthal. The lefty and postseason legend figures to be among the top names available at the trade deadline as he is set to hit free agency at the end of this season and the Giants look headed for a true rebuild, or something close to it. Either way, Bumgarner doesn’t quite fit in that future.

As for this list, this shouldn’t be taken as reason to believe he doesn’t want to play on the Red Sox or any of these teams. Players typically use their no-trade clauses not to actually block trades to undesirable cities but rather to gain leverage. By picking a group of the best teams in the league, Bumgarner is trying to pick a list of teams who could trade for him, with whom he could try to negotiate some kind of compensation bonus, though I’m not entirely sure what that would be. Either way, I don’t see the Red Sox being involved in Bumgarner talks this summer barring a serious injury in their rotation between now and then. The Giants lefty is still solid, but at this point his name value far exceeds his value on the field. That said, he’ll be motivated to get a trade through this summer so he can’t be saddled with a qualifying offer this coming winter.