Crawford Told To Rest Wrist For 5-7 Days

Carl Crawford has his surgically repaired left wrist examined today and will curtail his swinging and throwing for five to seven days. Manager Bobby Valentine said having Crawford back by Opening Day

is probably not realistic. ... He'll be ready when he's ready. ... Carl loves to do a lot of stuff and it's probably not in his best interest at this time to overdo it. It's more work than his wrist needs at this time.

Valentine also raved about the fielding ability of shortstop Jose Iglesias:

[H]e has a special tracking device on fly balls unique to very few from what I’ve seen so far. He has a special ability to transfer the ball from glove to hand. He has a specialness moving and range and game awareness, I can tell he can transfer the ball from a longer distance more than anyone I’ve ever seen and he's got that GPS in his mind.

Dustin Pedroia will hit leadoff if that's what the lineup card says:

I hit leadoff in high school, college, and '07 when we won the World Series. ... If [Jacoby Ellsbury] needs to drop down to hit some homers with more guys on base ... It doesn't matter. I've grown up a lot. I'm a lot smarter offensive player than I was a few years ago. I hit. 214 [as a leadoff hitter in 2009]? It's good because if they would have kept me in another 20 games I would have hit .414. Ride the wave. It's a wave, dude. How's a heart beat go? It goes up and down, just like baseball. ... Ride the wave, dude. Surf is up.

I have found the recent storyline of how in the world will Josh Beckett adjust to not having Jason Varitek catch his pitches utterly bizarre. Usually, Beckett is known as Commander Kickass and a glaring, snarling, nails-chewing, man of few words, but without the Cactus, he's cry, forget about to pitch, and post a 10.00 ERA? Isn't every starter going to have to learn how to live Life After Tek?

Clay Buchholz faces the Twins at 7 PM.