Pedroia's brilliant night could turn Boston tide

DENVER – At the end of a long, long night, Terry Francona's body gave out. He spent four hours, 48 minutes watching his Boston Red Sox trade leads with the Colorado Rockies, and by the time he headed for the exit, his right nostril was plugged with a tissue. His altitude-induced bloody nose was a fitting gift for an evening during which he felt like he was punched in the face, as well as the gut, kidney and nether regions. It might have bothered Francona, too, had he not witnessed one of the great performances in major league history.

To call Dustin Pedroia's(notes) one-man show Thursday night anything less would be unfair. In the last 90 years, fewer than two dozen men have finished a game with the five hits and three home runs Pedroia did in a 13-11 victory. Among them are Cobb, Foxx, Stargell, Schmidt, Rose, Pujols – Hall of Famers and MVPs all, hitting greats even to whom five hits and three home runs feels like something special.

That it came from the little lumberjack made it all the more impressive. By now, Pedroia taking healthy hacks from his 5-foot-7 frame should no longer seem novel nor resemble a kid swinging a bat too big for him. Only it does, the sight impossible to ignore. In this game of hulking men who get bigger by the year, room remains for a wee warrior – a modern-day David slinging his version of rocks, in this case thrice over the Coors Field fences.

"I don't know how he do it, but he do it," Red Sox first baseman David Ortiz(notes) said. "I'm not surprised. I've seen it tons of times from him. I've never hit three in a game."

Ortiz and Manny Ramirez(notes) spent a combined 2,140 games in a Boston uniform, and neither went deep three times in one game. A pipsqueak 26-year-old second baseman outmuscled the two most prolific Red Sox sluggers since Ted Williams, his first homer a patented uppercut drive, his second a thunderclap off a fastball in his wheelhouse, his third a 10th-inning moonshot that permeated a thicker-than-usual Colorado night.

When Pedroia returned to the dugout following the final one, Ortiz enveloped him in a big bear hug, knocked off Pedroia's batting helmet and didn't bother to apologize amid the euphoria. He, like everyone else, succumbed to the moment; courtesies are immaterial during a 5-for-5, three-homer, five-RBI barrage.

"That's one of the best performances I've ever seen," Francona said. "That's like Sandberg-esque."

Actually, only twice did Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg finish a game with five hits. Never did he smash three home runs in a game. What Pedroia did was perhaps more Pedroia-esque than anything.

"It wasn't shocking when he hit the home run," Francona said. "We all felt like he was going to do something good. … He's a great player. When he's locked in at the plate, he's as dangerous as anybody."

Locked in sounds about right. Over his last 13 games, Pedroia is hitting .500, getting on base 54 percent of the time and slugging .865. He has raised his season OPS more than 100 points and now finds himself back where he belongs: near the top of the leaderboards in nearly every category among American League second basemen.

Of course, he isn't atop them, the New York Yankees' Robinson Cano(notes) having swooped in and stolen the mantel from Pedroia as the AL's premier second baseman. If such a thing doesn't bother Pedroia, the timing of his spurt – alongside the recent talk of Cano carrying the Yankees amid down years from Alex Rodriguez(notes) and Derek Jeter(notes) and Mark Teixeira(notes) – is then a rich coincidence. Remember, competition and perfectionism comprise the mechanism in Pedroia's everyday tick-tock.

He didn't finish second in the 2008 MVP voting, and he wasn't going to let the Red Sox finish behind the Rockies on Thursday. After Jonathan Papelbon(notes) imploded in the ninth inning for the second consecutive day, Pedroia walked to the mound, calmed him, then mashed a hanging slider from Huston Street(notes) about five minutes later.

"I got good pitches to hit," Pedroia said, "and didn't miss them."

His first went for a double, and Pedroia added a single, though the home runs were the showpieces, nuggets of excellence not necessarily rare for him but not commonplace, either. In Pedroia's first full season, he hit eight home runs. As the MVP, he hit 17 in 653 at-bats, then 15 last year. He's already got 12 this year, and while no one ever mistook Pedroia for a power hitter, he was vehement that he hammered Little League pitching: "Oh, yeah, I hit a lot of bombs. Don't kid yourself."

By now, we needn't. Everyone knows Pedroia isn't a joke, some little balding guy with a big, bad beard scratching out the 25th spot on a roster because of his pluck and chemistry and other immeasurables often attributed to short white guys. He is a ballplayer, and that is about the best compliment one in his profession can earn.

It's why, with Victor Martinez(notes) and Kevin Youkilis(notes) getting the day off, Francona texted Pedroia in the morning Thursday and told him he would be hitting third: Francona, as much as anyone, believes in Pedroia, in his abilities and successes and importance to Boston clawing back into the playoffs in baseball's toughest division.

Sixteen days ago, Pedroia looked like anything but a three-hole hitter. His batting average dipped to .248. His right knee felt balky. An exam showed no damage, and ever since, he has promised to put on what he deems, in his typically bravado-filled lingo, a "laser show."

"I saw people worry about Pedey because he wasn't having the laser show going on," Ortiz said. "I thought, 'Don't worry about it. He'll be back.' "

And he is, in full force, looking every bit of his MVP self from two years ago. The Red Sox avoided a sweep. They kept pace with Tampa Bay for second place in the division. They shook off Papelbon's meltdown and their own fatigue and prevailed thanks to a historic night in which their little Paul Bunyan swung like he knows how to swing.

Novel though it may have looked, it was anything but.