"Put Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia on the streets of any city but Boston or New York and there's a good chance he'd seem like just any other guy. At 5-9, 175 pounds and with a constant day or two of beard growth, you'd never pick him out as the heart and soul on one of baseball's best teams.

"To play the game you don't need to have height. You need to have heart," Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano said. "Sometimes people are wrong. A lot in baseball is judging people by their body. You need to have so much more. It's not the most important thing."

Cano got another up-close look at that heart when Pedroia hit the game-tying sacrifice fly in the ninth inning Sunday night before Josh Reddick's line single won the game, 3-2, in the 10th.

Pedroia wrings every bit of effort out of each pound and inch on his frame and does it while showing great baseball instincts.

In the third inning Saturday, he legged out a double by sliding headfirst into second base, grabbing it with his right hand and then changing to his left hand when momentum pulled his right hand off."