FORT MYERS, Fla. — Dustin Pedroia arrived in Red Sox camp on Saturday with a fading, four-inch scar down the front of his left knee.

Pedroia spent the entire offseason rehabbing from a cartilage restoration procedure performed in October. He’d injured the knee in April after a slide from Baltimore’s Manny Machado and played through the pain the rest of the season.

The 33-year-old isn’t expected to be ready for the start of the season, but a return to the lineup by May is feasible.

“I’m still excited and ready to go,” he said. “It’s just, they kind of have to make sure we look at the big picture and make sure I’m healthy through the remainder of my career and I appreciate that from them. I kind of haven’t taken that stance before so it’s been great.”

The second baseman is running on an anti-gravity treadmill that prevents him from landing with the full force of his weight. At this point, he’s running on 80 percent of his weight for seven minutes and next week he’ll progress to 10 minutes. In two weeks, if all goes as planned, he’ll be able to run on his full weight on flat ground.

“I’m ahead of schedule so now it’s just continuing with the process of it and we’ll go from there,” he said.

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By the end of last season, Pedroia said he felt pain even when walking around but post-surgery he noticed a difference right away.

Pedroia said his physical therapist in Arizona also worked with several current and former NBA players who had similar cartilage restoration surgeries like Amar’e Stoudemire.

“He kind of knew what steps to take each week and where I was going to be,” Pedroia said. “It helped me that I’m not very big, so it’s less weight putting on my knees. It’s been a hard rehab process, like the amount of volume stuff to do. But I feel great. I don’t hurt. I’m ready.”

MARLINS: Miami-Dade County is suing former owner Jeffrey Loria and the new ownership group led by Derek Jeter, seeking money from the $1.2 billion sale of the team.

The suit contends a 2009 agreement calls for the county and city of Miami to receive a share of profits from any sale of the team. The deal was related to an agreement to finance the team’s ballpark that opened in 2012 and was built mostly with taxpayer money.

Loria bought the Marlins for $158.5 million in 2002 and sold the team to Jeter’s group last fall.

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METS: The big question surrounding David Wright is the one that even he can’t answer.

Can he play this season?

“I’m going to give it my best shot, certainly,” the New York captain and third baseman said Saturday. “I probably have a lot of the same questions you’re asking me and a lot of people are asking of me. I just don’t know. It’s certainly been an uphill climb for me.

“To honestly answer your question, I just don’t know. I’d love to play, but my body’s got to hold up and have to cooperate with me a little bit.”

The 35-year-old Wright calls his health the “biggest hurdle.” The medical update to the media suggests no immediate expectation of his being penciled into new manager Mickey Callaway’s lineup anytime soon.


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