The trainer’s room at Fenway Park has been a crowded place lately. That’s why Lucas Giolito arrives on most game days at 10 a.m.
Giolito, the Boston Red Sox’s top free-agent signee this winter, pitched in two spring training games before elbow pain cropped up. A week later he was headed for an internal bracing procedure, his season over before it began.
Little did he know, though, he’d be the first in a long list of injured Red Sox in the early part of the season.
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According to Spotrac, at the start of this week, the Red Sox led the majors with the most injured players on their roster (12) accounting for the third-most dollars-per-day lost to the IL ($6.67 million). The Texas Rangers and New York Yankees each had 10 injured players, accounting for roughly $14 million and $9 million, respectively, on the IL.
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The Red Sox somehow still sit at 13-11 even with nearly half the original roster on the shelf. Backups, bench players and third-string depth guys have filled in as starters, many playing away from their natural positions.
The injuries run the gamut from shoulder surgery to a bone bruise to a concussion to a wrist strain, an oblique strain and a flexor strain. Some of those players will be back sooner than later like Tyler O’Neill, who returned on Tuesday night in a 4-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians.
Others will miss the season, like Giolito.
The 29-year-old along with Liam Hendriks, another veteran pitcher new to the team, have quietly been going about their daily, tedious rehab in Boston, trying to stay out of the way (hence arriving at the park six or seven hours pregame for their rehab), while also battling guilt over their inability to contribute to a team that could desperately use their arms and expertise.
“I feel better than what I’m allowed to do,” Giolito said one day last week in a mostly empty clubhouse as his teammates prepared for that night’s game. “That’s going to be the biggest hurdle, for me like, ‘Dang, I’m here with the team. I feel like we can ramp this thing up and I can contribute.’ You got to follow the protocol and the medical side is amazing. So I’m just doing what they say.”
While Giolito is at the start of his rehab, Hendriks has been throwing and remains hopeful he can return by the second half of the season.
Giolito had the internal bracing procedure, a surgery which secures the UCL rather than replaces it altogether, on March 12. About six weeks post-surgery, he’s working on shoulder and forearm strengthening and mobility and has been cleared this week to return to light weight lifting.
“Being out of the gym this long, it kind of freaks me out, but it’s a slow build-up process,” he said. “I take it day by day, just take everything seriously as far as every exercise I’m doing. It all supports the end goal, coming back fully healthy and feeling good.”
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The Red Sox signed Giolito, in part, for his durability. He’d pitched at least 160 innings and made 29 or more starts every full season since 2018. The only other major injury he’d had was Tommy John surgery his first year in pro ball in 2012, shortly after he was drafted in the first round by the Washington Nationals. He’s been so healthy for so long that finding a daily rhythm that doesn’t involve playing every day has been strange. That first surgery was over a decade ago so he hardly remembers the recovery process but also acknowledged the medical advancements have changed some of the rehab. But there have been a few similarities.
“I remember the first time the physical therapist was commenting, I was getting my motion back quickly and the same thing this time, I got my motion back quickly,” he said. “I’d say a big difference is I feel like whereas that first surgery was a reconstruction, this is a repair, it’s almost like you feel that brace in there, you can feel like, ‘Wow, it’s really locked in (the elbow).’”
Unlike some players in years past, both Giolito and Hendriks have opted to do their rehab in Boston rather than at the team’s complex in Fort Myers, Fla.
Hendriks signed with the Red Sox in March in the middle of his recovery from Tommy John surgery that he had on Aug. 2.
Last week, the 35-year-old was throwing three times a week at 90 feet. This week, he’s progressed to throwing every day at 105 feet. He’s not looking too far down the line, but feels like he’s making good progress toward returning to the mound.
“I just don’t like not being able to kind of let it eat a little bit more, so that’s one thing I’m struggling with a little bit,” Hendriks said. “The good thing is, I’m more controlled about making sure I get everything synced up as much as I can. Now you can feel it, you can see the flight of the ball, which is closer to where I need to be to be on a mound, it’s good to get those things synced up. I’m really hoping I can get further along so I can stop doing the bloody shoulder program.”
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While Giolito has been staying back in Boston when the team is on the road, heading to Fenway Park every day for rehab, Hendriks has been traveling with the team and continuing his treatment from the road.
Part of that helps him stay in rhythm, but a larger part of it is a chance for him to meet with cancer patients across the country. Hendriks, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in December 2022, worked his way back to playing baseball early last summer before an arm injury developed, necessitating surgery. Meeting with current and former cancer patients and their families and doctors has helped him through a trying journey.
“Whenever I go somewhere, it’s not just me going, it’s like I’m actually going to accomplish something by going there,” he said of traveling with the team. “It’s just a situation where sometimes it’s the people that have gone through something that you can help with and they can help you.
“Missing the first couple months last year (during treatment) was tough because regardless of what I was going through, I just missed being around, I missed being here, I missed the atmosphere,” he said. “I missed rooting for guys in that team to go out there and perform well, and I miss trying to help out and be some sort of larrikin version of myself.”
Despite not being able to contribute physically on the field, both Giolito and Hendriks stay through the end of the game each night to offer support or insight for their teammates. For Giolito that means time in the dugout or clubhouse and for Hendriks that means sitting in the bullpen.
With an eye toward contributing later this summer, Hendriks wants to get a feel for how his bullpen teammates operate as they prepare for games and not just drop into the mix midseason.
“I get a chance to see how certain guys warm up, how they go about doing their business,” he said. “Everyone’s different so it’s like, the earlier you can get a grasp on that, that way you can kind of help out. It’s just making sure that when it gets to the sixth inning, I want to be away from this guy because he’s getting locked in in case his situation comes up. Those little idiosyncrasies of everybody’s way of going about doing business. It’s nice to learn that before I get out there.”
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Giolito and Hendriks are at different points in recovery and have had different surgeries but going through the ups and downs of rehab together has helped them.
“It’s good to be on the training table next to a guy I call a friend because we played together (with) the White Sox, even though he can be very annoying sometimes,” Giolito quipped.
That relationship has kept the mood light amidst a laborious rehab process for two players the team won’t be able to rely on anytime soon. For his part, Hendriks is just hoping when he is ready, he’ll be coming back to a team that somehow found a way to stay afloat despite all of the injuries.
“Obviously I prefer to be playing,” he said. “But as long as I get to be out there, I’ll keep things lighthearted as much as I can.”
(Top photo of Giolito from spring training: Billie Weiss / Boston Red Sox / Getty Images)
