You may not recognize the date as having great significance in Red Sox history, but it does. It had nothing to do with what happened on the field that day, as the Red Sox were off, traveling between Kansas City and Boston ahead of a three-game series with the San Diego Padres. Instead it was a phone call placed by the Red Sox, specifically by GM Theo Epstein and Scouting Director David Chadd, that had lasting importance. Specifically, it was a call to alert the rest of Major League Baseball that with their first pick in the 2004 draft, the Boston Red Sox were selecting a shortstop from Arizona State University named Dustin Pedroia.

There was a buzz about Pedroia from the moment he was drafted. It’s possibly because Pedroia was the Red Sox’s first pick, and the first Red Sox pick is always of some consequence, at least initially. But it bears noting that Pedroia wasn’t a first round draft pick. The Red Sox had lost their first rounder when they signed free agent Keith Foulke from Oakland. Pedroia was the 65th player chosen in that draft, but despite that, he has turned into one of the best.

It’s a miracle Pedroia was even available in the middle of the second round. There were 64 players picked ahead of him, which means there were 64 chances for other teams to pick him. The White Sox, amazingly, had five selections before the Red Sox took Pedroia 65th overall. They took not Dustin Pedroia, not Dustin Pedroia, not Dustin Pedroia, not Dustin Pedroia, and not Dustin Pedroia, all of which were wrong.

Sort the entire ’04 draft by Baseball-Reference WAR and the first listed is Justin Verlander (56.6). Second in the entire draft is Pedroia at 52.2. That’s really close! It should be noted that the difference between the two players is larger by FanGraphs WAR (Verlander by 8.5) and much larger by our WARP (30.2), but even so, the Red Sox got the second-best player in the draft and likely the best position player available with a pick that is usually early in the third round.

Mostly all the above is abstract. Pedroia hasn’t been abstract. He’s been concrete, a foundational element in the Red Sox lineup since conquering the minor leagues for good in 2006. In 2007, Pedroia was installed by manager Terry Francona as the team’s regular second baseman coming out of spring training. Pedroia rewarded that faith by hitting .182/.308/.236. Famously, Francona refused to remove him from his starting spot. On May 3rd, Pedroia had a hit and a walk against Seattle. On May 5th, Pedroia had two hits and a walk against the Twins. May 6th? He had three hits, including two doubles against Minnesota. Two more hits followed on May 8th, and two more followed that on May 9. From that day forward, Pedroia has been the Red Sox’s second baseman.

He went on to win the American League Rookie of the Year award that season and, more importantly, help the Red Sox to their second World Series title in four seasons by hitting .283/.348/.483 throughout the playoffs. Pedroia collected three hits including a homer and five RBIs in the Red Sox win in Game Seven of the ALCS against Cleveland, and then in the first game of the World Series, on the second pitch he saw, he homered again. The Red Sox never trailed during that entire World Series. The next season, Pedroia won the American League MVP award and made the All-Star team. Since then, he’s made three more All-Star teams, finished in the top ten for the MVP twice, and has won numerous Gold Gloves which, contrary to most Gold Glove wins, were deserved.

It’s difficult to come up with great individual plays that define Pedroia’s career. There have been perhaps too many to count. There was the time Pedroia backed up a throw that got by first base and threw out the runner as he returned to first base. There were the billion times the ball should’ve rolled into right field only to be stopped by a diving Pedroia’s glove and turned into an out by a throw from the knees. There was the time Pedroia hurt his foot and took fielding practice from his knees. Mostly though there was that swing, that huge, massive, outsized gash of a swing from a guy who was smaller than you. But it was that swing that punched balls to right field in important spots, that lined balls into the gap that turned into doubles as Pedroia threw himself into second base as much with his arms as his legs. There isn’t anyone’s stance or throwing style or swing that stands out in my mind as much as Dustin Pedroia’s.

At 34, with all his accomplishments to date, it’s appropriate to wonder about his Hall of Fame chances. He’ll be in the Red Sox Hall of Fame for certain, but to date, he’s slightly short of the requirements of the one in Cooperstown. By Jay Jaffe’s excellent JAWS metric, Pedroia is short of the total of the average Hall of Fame second baseman by a bit. If he’s able to have a productive sunset to his career he’ll hit those marks, but we’re already seeing the injuries creep in.

Which brings me to this. It may have dawned on you that you are reading a Dustin Pedroia retrospective piece, and you are right. Why, you may ask, am I reading a Dustin Pedroia retrospective piece when the man will only be 34 next season and is signed through 2021? The reason is this: Pedroia underwent knee surgery this week, and it was a particularly serious form of surgery. 34 years old may not be old for you or me, but for a second baseman it’s pretty ancient, and second basemen – and really baseball players in general – need both knees to function well in order to be good at their jobs. What’s more is that this is Pedroia’s second surgery on this particular knee. Perhaps this one will do the trick and the man will be pain-free and return to his peak prime years, but given his age and medical history, that seems unlikely. Odds are this is the beginning of the end of Dustin Pedroia as the Red Sox’s second baseman.

This isn’t the end of Pedroia on the Red Sox, so those articles can be saved for later, fortunately. But this surgery, and the fact that it will assuredly keep Pedroia out through May of next season, is a wakeup call for those of us who have grown accustomed to Pedroia’s presence in the lineup. It won’t be forever. It wasn’t for David Ortiz, and it won’t be for Pedroia. However in this case, in contrast to Ortiz, Pedroia has spent his entire career in Boston with the Red Sox. He’s a two-time World Series champion, an MVP, a multiple-time Gold Glove winner and All-Star. Pedroia is, as much as any player can be, Mr. Red Sox, and our time with him is winding down. That’s the way these things work, of course, but rather than remember Pedroia after he’s gone, let’s appreciate him while he’s still here.

Photo by Kim Klement – USA TODAY Sports

Players get hurt, players have bad runs, and teams hit patches where it seems every single player can’t do something for a month or more. The crazy thing about baseball is that that stuff happens and it doesn’t mean the team isn’t any good. There was a period of time where, over an 82 game span, the 2004 Red Sox went 41-41. That’s more than half a season of the greatest, most important Red Sox team of all time playing like an utterly forgettable also-ran. In a more specific and urgent sense, none of the stuff that has happened to the 2017 Red Sox is disqualifying for overall success, and indeed it isn’t difficult to see how this team could end up being really good. So let’s look at that!

How could the 2017 Red Sox be really good? To me, this all starts with Chris Sale. Sale isn’t peak Pedro, but he’s as close as Boston has come since the greatest of all time left town. By FanGraphs WAR, the top two seasons ever by a Red Sox starting pitcher are Pedro’s 1999 and 2000 in that order. The next four are by Roger Clemens and the four after that are all by Cy Young. Pedro’s best begins at 11.6 WAR and Young’s worst of his best is 7.7 WAR. Sale is at 6.5 now, and on pace for roughly two more wins between now and the end of the season. That would put him in fourth place all time, ahead of all of Young’s seasons and ahead of three of the Rocket’s four. That’s the kind of amazing season Chris Sale is having: better than any season Cy Young ever had in Boston and better than almost every season from maybe the greatest pitcher ever in Clemens. Now, imagine that guy (Sale) pitching twice in a best-of-five series, or three times in a best-of-seven series. There is a very real opportunity for Sale to have the kind of post-season impact previously reserved for Madison Bumgarner.

After Sale, imagine a healthy David Price! Yes, Drew Pomeranz has been fantastic this season, as good as anyone could’ve hoped, and he’d be fine starting game two, but he’s no healthy David Price, and neither is Rick Porcello or Eduardo Rodriguez. I said at the beginning of the season that David Price’s regular season almost didn’t matter. What mattered is how he pitches when the playoffs come around. His latest arm ailment throws that into question but if Price can get healthy enough to be the Red Sox number two starter, Boston can get three Sale/Price starts in a five game series and five in a seven game series. In other words, the only way the Red Sox lose a playoff round is if someone beats either Sale or Price. While you’re thinking how beatable Price is, remember we’re talking about a pitcher who put up a 2.52 ERA in July while striking out 25 percent of hitters and walking just 6.5 percent. That’s a heck of a number two. Cleveland’s starting staff can’t compete with that and neither can Houston’s, and that’s before we’ve even discussed what Eduardo Rodriguez or Drew Pomeranz can do.

The main competition for the Red Sox in the AL this season comes from the Indians, Astros, and Yankees. You could argue that the Red Sox advantage in starting pitching isn’t so big because the Indians have Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco (and they do), while the Astros have Dallas Keuchel and Lance McCullers (and they do). Except neither first starter is in the same league as Chris Sale (though Kluber isn’t far off), and neither second starter is nearly as good as a healthy David Price. If Price comes back healthy, he represents a huge advantage for the Red Sox in the post-season.

The same could also be said of Craig Kimbrel. We’ve all seen the impact relievers can have in the post-season, and with Kimbrel authoring one of the best reliever seasons we’ve seen in Boston in a long time, the opportunity for him to have an out-sized impact on the Red Sox’s postseason fortunes exists. The fact that manager John Farrell has occasionally been willing to use Kimbrel for longer outings and earlier in games when the leverage is higher during the regular season, and that bodes well for the same strong usage patterns in the playoffs. The fact that the Red Sox bullpen has been so good this season doesn’t hurt either, as they are equipped to cover for Kimbrel in the ninth should he be needed earlier in the game.

Finally we get to the offense which, there’s really no other way to put it, has underwhelmed this season. Coming off a July that saw Boston collectively hit a profoundly mediocre .248/.315/.367 (and honestly I’m shocked it’s that high), the mood surrounding the offense was understandably pessimistic. However, in the seven games since July ended (with six of those admittedly coming against the garbage White Sox), Boston has hit .288/.357/.559. They’re not that good they’re absolutely able to get that hot for periods of time, such as, oh I don’t know, five or seven game stretches.

Individually, we’ve seen odd seasons from Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts featuring less power than we know is there. The same could be said, in fact, of Jackie Bradley, Dustin Pedroia, Mitch Moreland, and even though maybe unfairly, Andrew Benintendi. That’s quite a group of players for whom a collective small bump towards career average could mean a substantial uptick in team offensive production.

Put it all together and you’ve got a team with a potentially dominating top of the rotation, a fantastic bullpen (and imagine, if Price does get healthy, how adding Pomeranz to the pen would look), and offense that’s over due for a break out. The ’04 team’s comeback against the Yankees, the ’07 team’s comeback against the Indians, and pretty much every damn thing about the 2013 team teach us that in the baseball playoffs you never know what can happen. But it’s not all luck, despite Billy Beane’s famous statement. Having Madison Bumgarner can help. Having Keith Foulke doesn’t hurt. The Red Sox have reasonable facsimiles of those guys, and a lineup with the capability to get moving at a more productive clip. It’s not hard to squint into the sun and see this Red Sox team doing something we haven’t seen since the august October of 2013. So when it happens, if it happens, you can be shocked, you can be surprised, you can be euphoric, but don’t say nobody ever saw it coming.

Photo by Bob DeChiara – USA TODAY Sports