Mike Lowell and Dustin Pedroia - Getty Images

Hopefully today will bring two things to the Boston Red Sox:

  1. Mike Lowell signs with the Red Sox
  2. Dustin Pedroia wins the AL Rookie of the Year

As I stated in an earlier post, this is the last day the Red Sox can exclusively negotiate with Mike Lowell or any of their free agents. When the clock strikes midnight tonight, the free agency frenzy begins and other teams can start throwing big money and longer contracts at him or any of the free agents on the market. So needless to say most of Red Sox Nation will be sitting on the edge of their seats all day waiting for what is hopefully good news on the Lowell front.

Pedroia is the favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year and his hitting coach Dave Magadan didn’t think Pedroia would make through the end of the season with his broken hamate bone.

“We realized at that point, with two months to go in the season, what a huge part of the offense he was. We were never really able to relax with him. He may have been relaxed, I don’t know. But I was always on the edge of my seat wondering. It’s not like he takes a nice, easy swing. He’s pretty violent through the zone. We were just praying that it wouldn’t fracture any worse. We were very fortunate because without him at the end of the year, and even into the postseason, who knows what would have happened?”

So needless to say, Pedroia was risking a lot by playing with the injury. You can check out what else Magadan had to say by clicking in the first Boston Herald link below.

Magadan praises determined Dustin [Boston Herald]

A few select words [Boston Globe]

Lowell deadline tonight [Boston Herald]

Sox, spouses take a hit for charity [Boston Globe]

Bubble bursts on eBay sale of Terry’s chew [Inside Track]

Breakdown of Curt Schilling’s contract [Extra Bases]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, and Hartford Courant websites.