Dustin Pedroia is out of the lineup, but he says it doesn't mean the Red Sox are going to miss a beat.

"There's still a laser show going on," he told Comcast SportsNet's Nicole Zaloumis Thursday night. "Just different guys doing it."

And that -- despite all the early-season, talk-radio hysteria of chicken, beer, and inmates-running-the-asylum carryover from last year -- is why Pedroia thinks the 2012 Red Sox are different than their '11 predecessors.

"We got a great group of guys, and we're not worried about individual results," he told Zaloumis. "It's all about team.