How did his arm really feel?
“Attached,” he stated.
Was there some added adrenaline getting on a mound?
“Not actually,” he answered.
What stood out concerning the rehab course of?
“How boring it’s,” Hendriks deadpanned.
None of this got here throughout as dismissive. It was performed for laughs, a break from the monotony for Hendriks, his teammates, and even the gathered reporters. He was talking to a full scrum with TV cameras and microphones, all due to a 15-pitch bullpen three hours earlier than recreation time. Give Hendriks credit score for not rolling his eyes. He didn’t journey from Australia, via years of baseball obscurity and rounds of most cancers therapy to have fun a number of pregame fastballs within the bullpen.
“I don’t know whether or not the trainers love me or wish to kill me,” Hendriks stated. “Every day is a wrestle telling them to let me do extra and having them attempt to maintain me again into a standard stratosphere.
“Which sucks.”
He’s eager for moments of better consequence and is assured they’re coming.
Liam Hendriks has confronted intense bodily and psychological challenges over the previous 20 months however has managed to take care of a humorousness about all of it. (Barry Chin / The Boston Globe through Getty Images)
There are numbers to assist inform each baseball story and Hendriks’ profession is informed via his three All-Star Games, two Reliever of the Year awards, and 116 profession saves. His backstory is chronicled via the 14 groups and 6 major-league organizations that noticed him come and go earlier than anybody trusted him with the ninth inning. He’s the one and solely graduate of Australia’s Sacred Heart College to ever play within the majors, and he was designated for task 4 occasions and traded three extra earlier than most individuals had ever heard of him. Yet, right here he’s, a survivor in additional methods than one.
Hendriks’ previous 20 months have been all about 4 rounds of chemotherapy, a six-game rehab task within the minors weeks later, and his emotional big-league return final May. He had 4 good outings in June earlier than season-ending Tommy John surgical procedure in August after which entered free company.
“Theoretically, I’ve acquired a brand new elbow,” Hendriks stated this spring. “So, I’ve acquired one other 10 (years) in me.”
Now 35 years previous, Hendriks is hellbent on proving himself but once more. He signed a two-year take care of the Red Sox, partially, as a result of they promised him two issues: They believed he might pitch this season, and so they needed him to spend most of his rehab course of with the big-league workforce. So, that’s what Hendriks has been doing. On the street, at house, all through spring coaching. He hasn’t been rehabbing at some fancy, far-flung facility; he’s been throwing on the sphere, sitting at his nook locker, and making jokes on the bullpen bench. Cancer therapy stored him away from individuals for a lot too lengthy final 12 months. But he doesn’t wallow. He doesn’t query.
GO DEEPER
Inside the Red Sox coach’s room with Lucas Giolito and Liam Hendriks
“I’ve by no means been an enormous ‘why me’ particular person,” Hendriks stated. “I believe it was inevitable that I used to be going to have one thing to do with my elbow. Unfortunately, it was in the identical 12 months that I handled lots of different issues, however it’s what it’s. There’s nothing I can do to vary it. All I can do is present as much as the park day by day with a optimistic angle and hopefully rub off on among the youthful guys right here.”
When Hendriks reported to Red Sox camp, he’d been given a goal of 64 mph, as in, a pitcher who usually throws a 95-mph fastball must be throwing roughly 64 mph when he’s seven months out from Tommy John surgical procedure. In his early days of spring coaching, although — “My surgeon might be not going to be completely happy about this,” Hendriks stated — he was throwing within the mid-70s.
“Not persistently!” Hendriks clarified. “Consistently low 70s. But it’s nonetheless, the leap from the place I used to be the time earlier than that was slightly too excessive. … A few occasions I used to be slightly too robust within the paint. But I favor to go too far than not do sufficient.”
Such is the Liam Hendriks Experience. Numbers don’t do justice to what he brings on the mound and off the sphere. He is a vein-bulging, obscenity-screaming, trash-talking wildman, but in addition a Lego-building, caregiving, joke-making teddy bear.
Within these extremes, a most cancers prognosis in December of 2022 was a shock. Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Doctors informed Hendriks to anticipate six rounds of chemotherapy. He’s happy with the very fact he wanted solely 4. He can’t bear in mind the precise date his final spherical began, solely that it was the Chicago White Sox’s house opener, and he was alleged to be of their bullpen, not in some hospital. He had a bone marrow biopsy on the finish of April and started a rehab task the primary week of May.
His elbow lasted slightly greater than a month after that.
The fact is, Hendriks knew his elbow was in hassle lengthy earlier than it popped. He’d first realized of a small tear in his UCL in 2008. He’d pitched for greater than a decade with out snapping it, however as he ramped up in his return following most cancers therapy — after a full six months off — he might inform it wasn’t proper.
“He didn’t care,” former White Sox teammate and present Red Sox teammate Lucas Giolito stated. “A number of guys can be like, ‘Oh, this hurts,’ and within the coaching room or no matter. He was like, ‘I’m simply going to go till it breaks.’”
Was there ever any considered defending it after going via a lot to get again on the mound and a membership choice looming?
“No. F— no,” Hendriks stated. “I don’t child it.”
Hendriks stated he’s come to consider he’s most vulnerable to damage when he holds again.
“The elbow was gone it doesn’t matter what,” he stated. “So, I’m not sitting there to attempt to rehab one other six weeks doubtlessly and never come again. If it goes, it goes. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I used to be fairly certain it was already carried out, however I used to be holding out hope that it was possibly slightly (bit) of scar tissue, and if that snaps off on the proper time, I’ll be advantageous. It wasn’t that.”
This offseason, the White Sox declined a $15 million membership choice, making Hendriks a free agent. It’s common for pitchers recovering from Tommy John surgical procedure to signal two-year offers with a watch towards really contributing in that second 12 months. When Hendriks talked to groups this winter, although, he clarified that it wasn’t a 2025 negotiation.
“We made it very abundantly clear that if you happen to’re coming in with that angle, it’s a no-go,” Hendriks stated. “There have been some groups that reached out and simply pale away straight from there.”
Hendriks expects to be pitching for the Red Sox this August. He signed a two-year deal that ensures him $10 million however features a $12 million mutual choice for 2026. By the time he signed, Hendriks had begun enjoying catch together with his bodily therapist, and Hendriks stated he was much less anxious about his elbow and extra anxious about spiking a throw to a non-baseball participant. But Hendriks hit his associate within the chest, and the moment suggestions was that Hendriks wasn’t “muscly,” that means he was staying free and never getting tense. The movement was as pure as ever.
When Hendriks talks about limits, he talks solely about breaking them. From Australia to the All-Star Game. From being on waivers to signing long-term contracts. From Stage 4 most cancers to a faster-than-expected restoration. From Tommy John surgical procedure to having an excessive amount of oomph on his fastball in spring coaching. Now a 15-pitch bullpen and a tongue-in-cheek miniature press convention.
Does the sunshine on the finish of a Tommy John tunnel look totally different than the sunshine on the finish of a most cancers tunnel?
“Ehh, in my thoughts, it’s the identical,” Hendriks stated in spring coaching. “There’s nonetheless an finish purpose. There’s nonetheless a purpose that I must get again from. It’s just a bit bit extra of a slow-moving course of.”
Hendriks doesn’t have a sit-back-and-wait persona, and he’s needed to do precisely that for a lot of the previous 12 months and a half. He’s wired to pitch the ninth. Check with him once more when that lastly occurs.
“It’s not that (rehab) is lengthy. I can deal with lengthy,” Hendriks stated. “I can’t deal with sluggish. And it’s the slowness that’s actually pissing me off.”
(Top picture of Hendriks in May 2024: Maddie Malhotra / Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)
