Pedroia waiting for OK from doctors

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ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Dustin Pedroia admits he won't know with any certainty until he undergoes a CT scan Friday on the fractured bone in his left foot how soon he can return.

“

Guys that are hurt, we care so much. It's not fun watching this, watching every game, knowing that in some way we want to help. As long as the bone is not going to break off, they're not going to tell me anything.

” -- Dustin Pedroia

But Boston's All-Star second baseman said he is hopeful that if the scan shows the bone is healing, his protective boot can come off and he can begin weight-bearing activity, that he will be able to return to the field sometime during the team's 10-game West Coast trip that begins July 19.

His biggest concern, he said, is that if the bone breaks off and he requires a pin to be inserted to meld the bone back together, he would miss the remainder of the season.

But if the doctors are satisfied that won't happen?

"If there's no chance of that,'' Pedroia said, "then the Laser Show is back on.''

By Friday, when Pedroia is scheduled to have his CT scan, it will be three weeks since he fouled a ball off his left foot and sustained a "minimally displaced" fracture of the navicular bone, which is a bone at the top of the midfoot. Such injuries usually take six weeks for recovery, but Pedroia has insisted from the outset that he intends to beat that timetable.

He is just waiting for the green light from the doctors that the bone is healing and is not at further risk.

"Then it's about how much pain I can tolerate,'' Pedroia said, "and my tolerance for pain is pretty high.

''That's what [I'm] looking for. I don't know what [team doctors are] looking for. I'm trying to get back in there. Guys that are hurt, we care so much. It's not fun watching this, watching every game, knowing that in some way we want to help. As long as the bone is not going to break off, they're not going to tell me anything [about when he comes back to play].''

Pedroia was hurt the night after the best game of his professional career, one in which he went 5 for 5 and hit three home runs against the Colorado Rockies. In the 14 games before the injury, he was batting .500 (26 for 52), raising his overall season average from .248 to .292.

Earlier in the season, Pedroia played through a twisted knee he incurred on a play at the plate in Detroit on May 15. He reluctantly admitted the knee was bothering him while enduring a prolonged slump over the next 22 games, in which he batted just .178. But then he got hot, and the knee no longer was an issue.

Without Pedroia, whose injury was the first in a bizarre series that also claimed Clay Buchholz, Victor Martinez and Jason Varitek in a six-day span, the Red Sox are 7-6 and have been held to four runs or fewer seven times.

Buchholz, who is out with a strained hamstring, will make a start Friday, either in Fenway Park against the Rangers or a rehab start.

Martinez, meanwhile, continues to feel pain in his fractured left thumb and no timetable has been set for his return.

Gordon Edes covers the Red Sox for ESPNBoston.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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Gordon Edes

Red Sox reporter, ESPNBoston.com

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• Has covered Red Sox for 15 years
• Award-winning beat reporter
• Joined ESPNBoston.com in 2009