Red Sox infielder Jed Lowrie played since May with a sprain and a small non-displaced fracture in his left wrist, aliments that worsened as the season wore on, general manager Theo Epstein said in an e-mail. The minor injuries were revealed Tuesday when Lowrie underwent an MRI. The wrist has already begun to heal itself, Epstein said, and should be back to full strength with three weeks of rest. The injuries gave Lowrie occasional pain and affected his grip strength, particularly late in the season, which likely explains his difficulties batting lefthanded. As a righthanded batter, Lowrie hit .338 with a .525 slugging percentage with the Red Sox. Lefthanded, he hit .222 with a .334 slugging percentage.
Lowrie was sent back to the minors in mid-May and hit .348 in 7 games to close out the month, and .310 through 29 games in June. But in July, he hit just .176 in 9 games and was called back up to Boston where we watched him major league BA drop from 3.10 on May 10th to .269 by June 30th.
Knowing what we know now, one could blame the wrist injury, but Jed went on to bat .284 and drive in 24 runs in 27 game through August... the above report says that things got bad late in the year, so that probably explains the .213 average in September, but this story shows the kind of guts this kid has - quite Pedroia-like, as Center field points out.
Bottom Line: Bottom Liner Cory and former teammate of Lowrie chimed in to let us know that Lowrie is the real deal and a seriously hard worker:"I played on Jed's high school baseball team and the man is a work horse. I have not seen anyone match his work ethic and the guy was born to play SS. Give him one more year tops and his name will be said as much as Pedroia or Ellsbury! If not more!"
If Jed's numbers from August - .284, 24 RBI, 12 doubles, 3 triples, a homer and 12 runs scored - are any indication of what he's capable of... I'll be happy to have Jed at SS for the foreseeable future.
See ya Julio.
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