Red Sox GM, Pedroia Offer Different Viewpoints of Sandoval's Comments

It's been nearly a month since the Red Sox released Pablo Sandoval.

On Monday, the current Giants infielder opened up about his rocky time in Boston.

With a day to digest the contents of that article, GM Dave Dombrowski and second baseman Dustin Pedroia offered their thoughts on Sandoval's comments.

"It doesn't make you feel good when you see that, in the sense that for me, he didn't perform very well, is really what it comes down to. Using that as a comfort feeling for a big league player, I don't that's really a very good excuse, per se. It's up to him to try to make the adjustment, but the basic reality is it didn't work, he didn't play very well. I think if he would've played well, he would've felt comfortable as can be," Dombrowski said while appearing on WEEI Sports Radio Network Tuesday.

Why didn't Sandoval succeed in Boston? Dombrowski addressed that as well.

"He did get himself into very good shape. He worked well. He worked hard. Worked on nutrition, worked on his skills, worked on the mental aspect of it. He did what was possible to try to succeed. But to me, what it ended up looking like was his skills had deteriorated. Sending him to Triple-A even on a rehabilitation assignment, he didn't do very well," Dombrowski said.

The second-year Red Sox GM explained why Sandoval didn't fit with the direction Boston is trying to go.

"I still think he'll be able to hit some from the left-hand side. He's not a very good hitter from the right-hand side all along. The biggest key for me was how he struggled from a defensive perspective, also. So when I watched that, I just thought -- not only myself, but others -- I just thought that he wasn't going to get it here. And I can't say he'll go somewhere else and be better, but when you lose your defensive skills, which it looked like he had, and then you hurt yourself from a defensive perspective on a club that has made an adjustment and tried to be a pitching-forward organization, you really can't have that type of hole," Dombrowski said.

Pedroia, the team leader with David Ortiz in retirement, had a completely different, friendlier take on what Sandoval wrote.

"We all love Pablo. We were in it together. He just didn't perform the way he would like to. But that's how it is. He was in San Francisco for a long time and they won three World Series. That would be like me going to another team. Obviously, your heart is in a place you've been for a longtime and done great things. So I understand. Nobody is like, ‘Oh, I can't believe Pablo (said that).' We understand. He had a tough time while he was here, with injuries, performance, everything. We wish him the best. We're glad he's playing there, he's healthy and he's happy," Pedroia said on a different WEEI show on Tuesday.

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