Red Sox place Dustin Pedroia on DL with left knee inflammation

.The Red Sox have placed second baseman Dustin Pedroia on the 10-day disabled list with left knee inflammation, per a club announcement Saturday:

Pedroia, 34, has played in just three games this season following his return from offseason surgery on his left knee. In 13 plate appearances, he’s posted a miserable .091/.231/.091 slash line, and he’s missed the Red Sox’s last two games due to the knee soreness. This lingering pain certainly isn’t an encouraging development, as Pedroia was limited to just 100 games last season partly due to the same soreness.

As was the case before Pedroia returned from the DL, utility players Eduardo Nunez and Brock Holt will see the bulk of the action at second base in his absence. Lefty reliever Bobby Poyner, who logged time with the big-league club earlier this year, and first baseman Sam Travis, who played in 33 games with the Red Sox last season, were recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket to fill the roster spots of Pedroia and Mookie Betts, who went on the DL just before yesterday’s game.

If this is an indication that Pedroia’s career is nearing its end, he’s done quite a bit to establish himself as a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate. He was the 2007 AL Rookie of the Year and 2008 AL MVP and is a four-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove winner, and two-time World Series champion. Using Jay Jaffe’s JAWS metric, Pedroia is ranked as the 20th-best second baseman in baseball history, and 13 of the 16 retired players ranked ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame. Based on his seven-year peak WAR of 42.4, Pedroia is right in line with the average 42.9 seven-year peak WAR among Hall of Fame second basemen.