This was a busy week for myself and the Cardinals. I was a tough week off the field and for my rehab but the team is paying well and we took care of business on the field.
The first series of the week was in Kissimmee against the old Fire Frogs. The highlight of the trip was looking forward to the Thursday night game. The Thursday promotion for the game was free beer until we score a run. Going into the game the Fire Frogs starters had thrown five games against us. In those five games we were scoreless for 27 2/3 innings. A week before I was looking forward to the trip thinking about how it would be tough for our offense to score, and it would be fun to see the crowd in the sixth or seventh inning of free beer.
Then our team had to go and ruin it. A routine ground ball to third that turned into a wayward throwing error allowed us to score in the second inning of the game. I thought they should change the promotion to an earned run that ends the promotion. The crowd let out a collective groan thinking about how their free beer had eluded them. We ended up taking two of three from them and when you win a series that is always a good thing. The stadium that the Frogs play at is the old Astros spring training facility. The last time I was on this field was 2014 instructional league for the Atlanta Braves. The field looks exactly the same. he back fields look like they don’t see much action anymore but it was fun to be in the clubhouse and think about my time here four years ago. It certainly doesn’t feel like it has been four years. We ended up winning the series 2-1 which was nice coming off a 3-1 series win against the Mets over the weekend.
This trip was big for me and my rehab. The plan was to continue playing catch everyday and then on Thursday throw on the mound again. The trainer here made it sound like if this bullpen went well I would be in the games next week and back to doing baseball things. I played catch like normal, feeling good, ramping up my intensity. I had thrown on the mound last Sunday and everything felt good. I’m not sure what the difference was throwing on Thursday but it didn’t feel right throwing on the mound. The second I started ramping up my intensity and the factor of being on the mound made my tightness and pain surface. I threw the first few and after about eight I said well that is enough for me it isn’t improving as I warm up so let’s call it a day. I wasn’t sure what it meant going forward and figured maybe I had a bad day and tomorrow would be better.
Having pain again after the month of improvement was a bummer. I thought I was making good progress and because of that I didn’t think I had a serious issue. With that being said the next day the trainer and doctors office snuck me in for an MRI. I was unaware that MRI machines are terrifying. The whole process was sketching me out but after it was done I was ready to learn whether the issue was serious or maybe I had am minor setback. The doctor wasn’t in until Monday and the second disc and images were sent to St. Louis for the team doctor to look at. Over the weekend I looked at the images with our trainer and he prefaced by saying that he is not a doctor and is not sure what to look at. he was correct as the doctor on Monday morning looked at completely different pictures than my trainer on Friday. That being said the doctor that the Cardinals work with here said that I have an issue in my UCL, and that either surgery or a more conservative approach were the two options. In a perfect world I would either have no damage, or all the damage and take the choices of recovery out of my hands. If it was totally damaged then it would be an easy surgery option, and if there was nothing wrong I’d get over the mental hump and be ready to pitch.
I know someone in my situation is on thin ice already and a potential surgery does not look good for the future. Sitting out for an extended period of time with my background is not an ideal scenario but it could be my only scenario going forward. I took the news alright, as I figured that either way it didn’t matter what he said because the damage was already there or wasn’t there. What ever I did the last few days didn’t change that. I don’t think we wasted a month either of rehab because I felt good. If it didn’t feel good right away we could have got imaging then made a decision and potentially been a month into rehab already. Either way there is rehab coming for an extended period of time in the future. All of this is out of my control now if I stay with the team to rehab, what my long term elbow health look like, and what I can do everyday to better my situation.
The progress I have made over the last month tells me that I have some ability left in the arm. If it was painful all the time, even just sitting around, I would have different feelings about my treatment options. At this pace I’ll be 27 before I throw in a game again, and potentially 28. What does that mean for me? I’m not sure but I also know they do not check your ID when you get to the mound. I still have my jersey which means I still have an opportunity to get to where I want to go.
I’m looking forward to continue to write about the season and share what is going on with my teammates and keeping everyone updated on how my treatment is going.
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