Boston Red Sox Dustin Pedroia: Everybody Calm Down

Dustin Pedroia wants everyone gravely worried about the state of the Red Sox after a four-game sweep at the hands of the Yankees to just calm down.

Easier to say that after he spearheaded a 6-5 win over the Tigers Monday night at Fenway Park. His two-run homer off Edwin Jackson in the first inning paved the way for the Sox to take a 4-0 lead.

“Yeah, that was nice,” Pedroia said of his ninth homer of the year. “We’ve been having a tough time scoring runs. Our biggest thing is we’re back home and just play the rest of the season as hard as we can and whatever happens, happens. We’re going to remain positive. I know we had a tough road trip, but there’s a lot of games left, a third of the season to play, so we’re still focused and feel we can still accomplish our goals.”

Then near-disaster struck when the Tigers came all the way back to tie the game, 5-5, in the seventh. But Nick Green came to the rescue with a sac fly in the bottom of the seventh to score J.D. Drew with the eventual winning run.

“They played well and we played well and it was a good game, and we’re just obviously glad to break that losing streak,” Pedroia said of the six-game losing streak that ended on Monday.

Pedroia’s manager Terry Francona was greeted not so warmly at a red light on Monday before the game. Francona’s window was down and he heard the concern expressed by fans. Pedroia said he draws the line at taking grief from fans.

“I’ll fire back on people,” Pedroia said tongue-in-cheek. “I don’t care. Everybody calm down, calm down. It’s a long year.”

But seriously, after a remarkably rough road trip ended with a bumpy plane ride back to Boston, Pedroia had the right perspective on Monday night.

“We got in pretty late,” Pedroia said of the 3:30 a.m. arrival back in Boston. “We slept until 1:30 p.m. and got to the yard, so I don’t think anybody had much of a chance to hear what people were saying. We understand it’s a tough environment to play in and you have to win here. We all know that. We’ve all been through tough times before.”

Pedroia led the way on Monday, connecting for his fifth first-inning homer of the season. He has also now hit safely in 13 of 15 home games since July 5. He has four homers with 11 RBIs and 12 runs scored in that span at Fenway.

“We’re out playing,” Pedroia said. “No one cares that we didn’t score for (31) innings. We’re baseball players and we understand there’s a lot of numbers to this game and that can mess you up. We’re just out playing and trying have fun.”