The Monday, March 30, 2020

* The Boston Globe

10 years after brain surgery, Ryan Westmoreland courageously carries on

Stan Grossfeld

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — He has the date tattooed on his right arm: March 16, 2010.

“The worst day of my life,” says Ryan Westmoreland, once the No. 1 prospect in the Red Sox system. "That’s when everything changed. That’s when my old dream was taken away.”

Ten years ago, he was being groomed to be the team’s center fielder of the future, then suddenly he was worrying whether he would even have a future.

Doctors had discovered a cavernous malformation, about the size of a golf ball, that twice had bled into his brain.

He was 19 years old, totally blind and half deaf, and he couldn’t even stand up. He underwent emergency brain stem surgery in Phoenix on that fateful March day.

He vividly remembers being wheeled down the hall at Barrow Neurological Institute to the operating room.

“I was starting to get some medications running through me, so things were kind of starting to get fuzzy,'' he says. "But I do remember thinking, ‘Is this it?’ ”

The Portsmouth native made a promise to himself. He decided he wouldn’t quit. Ever.

"I felt like I had a lot more to give, whether it was in baseball or not,” says Westmoreland, who was drafted in the fifth round in 2008 out of Portsmouth High School and signed with the Red Sox for a $2 million bonus.

Now, despite numerous physical challenges, he’s coaching baseball at the college level as an assistant at UMass-Dartmouth.

"Westy,” as everybody calls him, is also co-director of the Ocean State Makos, a youth baseball program he runs with his father. He also raises awareness for the Angioma Alliance, whose motto is, "Brains shouldn’t bleed.”

On this day, the 10th anniversary of his biggest nightmare, he got up early and fed his yellow lab Petey, who was named after Dustin Pedroia. Then he posted the original MRI showing the scary tumor on social media along with a message thanking family, doctors, nurses, therapists, and supporters.

Having undergone 17 brain-related surgeries so far, Westmoreland has a lot of people to thank.

Comeback, then setback Westmoreland has long since abandoned the "why me” attitude. There always will be unanswered questions. No one will ever know how good he could’ve been with the Red Sox.

Jason McLeod, the former Red Sox scouting director, said Westmoreland was the most talented player he ever drafted.

He played just one season with the Lowell Spinners, in 2009. In 60 games, he hit .296 with 7 homers, a .401 on-base percentage, and a .484 slugging percentage. A speedster, he stole 19 bases without being caught.

"He would have been Boston’s lefthanded Mike Trout,” said McLeod in 2016.

Baseball Prospectus listed Westmoreland as the 14th-best prospect in the nation in 2010. Trout was 53rd.

After the first brain surgery, Westmoreland vowed to come back, despite the overwhelming odds. He had to relearn how to do even the simplest task. Tying his shoes used to take 10 seconds, now it took a half-hour.

Things looked bleak, but he still believed he would return to baseball.

By December 2011, he was defying doctors and baseball experts, taking swings in the Dominican Instructional League against professional pitchers.

"That was unheard of,” he says.

In his first game back, he was a designated hitter because his balance was still off.

He bravely dug in, only to spin around and get plunked in the neck by an errant fastball.

Now he laughs at the thought.

"Back then I was pissed,” he remembers. “What are the odds of that?”

Despite his amazing progress, the cavernous malformation — tangles of blood vessels — re-formed in July 2012. He required a second brain stem surgery. The tumor was successfully removed but the collateral damage left him more debilitated.

“Everything physically was way worse,” he says. "I’ve got to do all of this all over again, but a thousand zillion times harder. There’s no chance I was going to ever play again. Zero.”

He retired from baseball at age 22.

He even stopped watching the Red Sox.

“I think mentally one of the worst possible things for me was watching Red Sox games on TV,” he says.

He saw a steady parade of guys he played with in the minors — Will Middlebrooks, Daniel Nava, Jackie Bradley Jr., , Christian Vazquez — make their big league debuts.

"It’s not that I wasn’t happy for them — we are friends for life — but I was thinking that should be me,'' Westmoreland says. "I should be making my big league debut right then. I remember I had to turn off the TV. I didn’t watch the Red Sox for a long time.”

There also was the constant pain.

"It was mental pain. Physical pain. Emotional, you name it,'' Westmoreland says. "It was way too much for a young kid to handle and to be able to somehow come out of this and be OK with everything.”

He’d torture his own soul, lying on the couch watching YouTube videos of him crushing a home run.

When he cried, he couldn’t even blink away the tears. They just ran down the left side of his numb face.

Despite his earlier vow to himself, he spiraled into a dark place, contemplating suicide.

"I would have these thoughts all the time that I should just take pills and end it,” he says. "I didn’t want to burden my family, friends, and loved ones on this journey a second time around.”

But he also felt the strong tug of his parents’ love in his heart, and remembered that nothing could be worse than that date on his arm. He also had another reminder tattooed above his heart. "Never, never, never give up,” it said. He chose life and became stronger in the broken places.

Return to the game Westy still looks ripped in his upper body, like he could still smash balls into the right-field seats at Fenway.

"I realized what I can and can’t control, and nutrition and health and physical activity was something that I could control, and I’ve been doing that,” he says.

Today he moves easily, with just a slight limp.

But the left side of his face "doesn’t work” and the right side of his body has varying degrees of numbness.

"There’s some parts of my body where you could take a knife and stab me and I’d have no idea,” he says.

Doctors aren’t giving up. They took a muscle from his left thigh and grafted it into his face, and took a nerve from his right ankle and strung it around his upper lip. They hope that the new nerves will grow together and spark movement.

In addition, doctors inserted micro-weights in his left eye so it could close. He has learned to adjust to life with double vision.

But he always had an eye for beauty. He met Libby Pinkham, a social worker, on an online dating app. Both were immediately smitten.

“She’s incredible,” says Westmoreland. "She’s very in tune with emotions and how to deal with trauma and different aspects of life.”

Pinkham admires Westmoreland’s spirit and honesty.

"He’s not always sunshiny and positive,” she says. “He struggles and is honest about that part of it. But at the end of the day, he looks to the future and what’s ahead and doesn’t dwell in the past.”

They are scheduled to be married in June in Newport.

Westmoreland says baseball and his loved ones saved his life. He returned to the game in 2013, helping coach his alma mater at Portsmouth High and also coaching summer league kids.

When UMass-Dartmouth coach Bob Prince hired Westmoreland this season, he was immediately impressed with how he handled himself.

"Very honestly, there’s not much he can’t do, besides tossing batting practice,” says Prince. "He’s a great guy, a very calming, even-keeled guy.

"What he can provide our team and me is invaluable, especially to our kids who are 18- to 22-year olds. They feel like superheroes and indestructible. It was inspirational for our guys to be around him.”

The Corsairs got off to a 9-1 start this season, their best in more than 30 years.

Westy immediately made everyone comfortable with his humor.

“Hitting is hard,” he told them. "But it’s not brain surgery.”

Westmoreland says he had a lot of fun, even at 5 a.m. winter practices.

"I was able to tell them what I went through and hopefully help them along the way in pro baseball but also in life,” he says.

Third baseman Mike Knell says Westmoreland quietly took him aside one day when he was in a slump.

"He’s awesome,” says Knell. "He gave me some pointers and everything started clicking. He got me my swing back.”

He showed compassion for some of the seniors when the season was canceled in mid-March while they were playing in a tournament in Florida. He knows a little bit about loss and that bad things happen to good people.

"His attitude is the best,” says Knell. "I think it feeds off his passion for the game. I know it gives us energy, and I feel like we give it back to him. ”

Approaching his 30th birthday in April, Westmoreland says this is the happiest he’s been since that fateful March day.

He still wants to get a college degree, having passed up a Vanderbilt scholarship to sign with the Sox.

He hasn’t ruled out getting to Fenway Park someday, either.

"I’d love to coach in The Show,” he says. "There’s a bazillion guys that are qualified as far as their knowledge of the game. But I certainly have a different perspective on dealing with adversity than the next guy.”

His dream of playing died 10 years ago, but it almost always resurfaces each year around the time of the anniversary. It’s always the same dream. He’s a young healthy kid, a speedy blonde rookie, and the field of dreams, of course, is always Fenway Park.

“I just dreamed of running out to center field at Fenway with a packed house,” he says. "Everything is silent and in slow motion.”

He’s in no hurry to wake up, and he just looks around, takes it all in and savors the moment.

"I’m just seeing everyone and thinking ‘I made it!’ ’’

* The Boston Herald

Chris Sale’s elbow injury probably wasn’t predictable, experts explain

Jason Mastrodonato

When the Red Sox revealed that ’s elbow was acting up again this spring, there was a chorus of folks who felt like his wacky throwing motion — which begins with his body closed off to the hitter and finishes with his arm flying from a low-three-quarter arm slot and slinging high-90s heaters to the plate — was prone to injury.

That he finally needed Tommy John surgery, they said, seemed inevitable.

“People have been telling me this was going to happen for years,” Sale said when he discussed his elbow injury three weeks ago. “I don’t know if they get to say, ‘I told you so,’ or if I made it long enough to where that’s dissolved, I’m not worried about that. I’ve done what I’ve done and I’m at where I’m at.”

But talking to doctors, pitching coaches and injury prevention experts, two of whom work for other MLB clubs, the idea that Sale’s elbow injury was “expected” is unrealistic, and is based more on myth than scientific evidence.

And it’s led one expert to wonder if we can toss out the idea that there are any “safe” pitching mechanics at all.

“I think it’s one of those things where I’ve gone in and out of different opinions over the course of my career,” said Eric Cressey, who owns and operates Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson.

This winter, after the New York Yankees overhauled their medical team following an injury-laden 2019 season, Cressey was hired to lead the Yankees’ strength and conditioning program.

“To be honest, I think the industry as a whole is trending in the direction of — if you look at all the research, and Ben Hansen (a senior biomechanical engineer for the White Sox) is the guy to talk to — the conclusion he’s come to is, for the most part, mechanics are shockingly not predictive of injuries,” Cressey said.

In that case, why don’t more people try to pitch like Chris Sale? Or other pitchers who’ve had success with unusual mechanics?

Mechanics are “probably something we can look at a lot more as it relates to optimizing performance,” Cressey said.

How it started for Sale When Sale first arrived at Florida Gulf Coast University in 2008, he was just another over-the-top left- handed pitcher. He finished his freshman year with a 3.47 ERA in 21 appearances, mostly out of relief.

The next year, he looked totally different.

“He got better real quick,” said FGCU head coach Dave Tollett.

Between seasons, Sale ditched the more traditional delivery and transitioned to the one he has today. It’s vicious to watch, but it drastically changed the effectiveness of his pitches.

“The fastball got better real quick,” Tollett said. “Boy, he really made a jump.”

Sale went from being an above-average reliever (he was originally drafted in the 21st round by the Colorado Rockies in 2007 before going to college) to a dominant starter, posting a 2.72 and 2.01 ERA in his final two seasons at FGCU before the White Sox drafted him 13th overall in 2010.

But something else stood out about the delivery that Sale developed as a 19-year-old.

“The slot he’s in right now is probably his natural slot, if you just watch him play catch,” Tollett said.

It’s why the White Sox never made an effort to change him. And after just 11 minor league appearances, Sale was called up to the majors in the same year he was drafted.

Longtime White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper was asked about Sale’s funky delivery in 2016.

“I didn’t see anything wrong (with that),” Cooper told late Globe writer Nick Cafardo. “I’d be crazy to change anything. I’d have to have my head examined.”

Because there’s such a wide variety of data involving pitching mechanics, and particularly arm slots, as they relate to injury risk, the recommendation is often to go with what’s most comfortable.

“I want guys to move as naturally as they can,” said Red Sox pitching coach . “And each of us is built with a different throwing motion based on how our bodies are made up. And if that’s the way Chris moves naturally and most fluidly, that’s the way he should pitch.

“I think the worst thing we can do is force someone into a style that doesn’t suit their body.”

It could have been random luck Dr. Brian Waterman currently serves as the associate professor of orthopaedic surgery at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He’s the team physician for Wake Forest University’s baseball team, and for the White Sox’ High-A affiliate in Winston-Salem. He once served as a team physician for the White Sox and worked with Sale.

Last January, together with Dr. Kristen Nicholson, Waterman helped create a state-of-the-art lab at Wake Forest to study pitching mechanics as they relate to injury.

“We’ve sunk about a half-million dollars of equipment and technology into it,” he said.

They’re still learning, but he’s made a few conclusions as it relates to arm slots.

“We’ve looked at angular velocity and hip-shoulder separation,” Waterman said. “Within that, we’ve looked at how the slot changes your pathomechanics, adverse attributes that create heightened risk of injury.

“We haven’t found much difference in that.”

Another key point: “We’ve also shown that velocity is not necessarily a predictor of increased torque in the elbow,” Waterman said.

So for all the concern about Sale throwing harder than ever before during the 2018 season, we can put to rest the notion that it increased his risk of injury.

It is worth noting, however, that Waterman found evidence to support increased stress on both the elbow and shoulder as it relates to horizontal adduction, or the movement of the arm horizontally across the body. With Sale’s throwing motion resulting in a lot of cross-body movement, it’s possible that it could increase his risk.

But where both Waterman and Cressey agree is that the best way to predict injuries is looking at a pitcher’s past.

Has he been hurt before? At what age? And what did his previous MRIs look like?

Waterman said MRIs on shoulders and elbows reveal at least some form of injury in around 80 percent of throwing athletes. And those MRIs can predict future injury.

“The pathology is there,” he said.

Until his elbow first became a problem last fall, Sale never had any elbow problems but for missing six weeks with a flexor muscle strain in 2014. And until his shoulder inflammation in late 2018, he hadn’t had shoulder issues either.

He had thrown over 1,600 big league innings before needing surgery.

“If you look at the research, and this is why I think Sale is an interesting case,” Cressey said, “because the only thing that predicts being healthy is having been healthy. The biggest risk factor for injury is a previous injury.

“Throughout the industry, you look at a lot of these guys that are durable starters into their 30s, guys like Corey Kluber, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, they’re guys that have made it past that initial threshold. They’ve got to 29, 30 with a pretty substantial workload. It’s the guys that are 20 to 27 or so, those guys are really vulnerable because that’s when they’re going through their increase in workload.”

No desire to change Coming into spring training this year, the Red Sox didn’t think Sale would get hurt again.

He had dealt with elbow soreness last fall, when some wondered if he’d need Tommy John surgery, but a visit to Dr. James Andrews resulted in Andrews confidently telling Sale that all he needed was a platelet- rich plasma injection.

According to Sale, Andrews told him, “Throw some PRP in that thing, see you in a few weeks and we’ll be good to go.”

Sale came into camp feeling as good as he ever has.

“That’s the frustrating part of all of this — he was making regular progress,” Bush said. “We felt good about what he was doing. We were monitoring stress on his elbow and radar gun readings — all the stuff we have access to now, where in the past, we didn’t. There was nothing that looked out of line.”

Even if Sale changed his delivery, which he said he has no intentions of doing, there’s no guarantee it’d help him stay healthy. And it could make him drastically less effective.

“Big leaguers come in all shapes and sizes,” Cressey said. “And the challenge is, if you take a guy like Chris Sale, and you make him normal, you clean up the arm action, don’t make him as closed off, you might take away exactly what makes him spectacular. You make his delivery less deceptive. The slider isn’t sweeping like it is.

“Baseball players thrive on being different than the norm. If you want to throw an average major league fastball, there’s a good chance you’re not going to be an average major league pitcher. You’re going to be in Double-A, getting rocked.”

That’s not why the Red Sox traded for Sale, that’s not why they extended him, and that’s not what makes him a pitcher on a Hall of Fame track.

“We can have everyone look nice and pretty and smooth,” Bush said. “But the goal is to get big leaguers out. To do that, we have to everyone on the edges of what looks normal or what appears normal.”

There’s not enough evidence to suggest anything about Sale’s injury could’ve been prevented with a different delivery. And until last fall, there weren’t glaring injuries in his past to suggest it might be coming.

This is one example of Tommy John surgery that might’ve been the result of random luck.

* MassLive.com

Boston Red Sox’s new assistant hitting coach, Hampden native Peter Fatse, excited for Fenway Park homecoming : ‘It still gives me goosebumps’

Chris Cotillo

Growing up in Hampden, Peter Fatse spent many afternoons playing in his backyard on a replica wiffle ball field modeled after Fenway Park. If and when baseball returns from its coronavirus hiatus this summer, Fatse won’t have to play make-believe to get the full Fenway experience.

Fatse, 32, was hired as the Sox’ new assistant hitting coach in October, joining the major league staff after one successful season as the Twins’ minor league hitting coordinator. For the Minnechaug graduate, the opportunity represents both a homecoming and the culmination of a very unusual journey to the big leagues.

“It’s always been a dream to get to the big leagues in general, and obviously, having the opportunity to do that with these guys, it’s even more special,” Fatse said earlier this month in Fort Myers.

Boston’s decision to hire Fatse, who played at UConn and appeared in 160 minor league games in the Brewers’ system before retiring in 2012, is part of a larger trend in which teams are hiring young, innovative coaches with no big league experience of any kind. Over the past two winters, teams have made a habit of poaching college coaches with zero professional coaching experience. In November, the Yankees hired 33-year-old Matt Blake -- who just five years ago was the pitching coach for Lincoln-Sudbury High School -- largely due to his progressive ways of thinking.

Fatse, an undersized utility player taken in the 24th round of the 2009 draft by the Brewers, was always a longshot to make the majors as a player and found himself constantly making tweaks to his swing just to keep his career alive. Those tweaks turned into an obsession with hitting and Fatse soon found himself sharing his ideas with teammates in the minors.

In college, Fatse never thought coaching was in his future. But as he reached the twilight of his playing career, he found himself growing increasingly passionate about the improvements his friends and teammates were making. Inspired by the profound impact UConn coach Jim Penders had on his own growth, Fatse started seriously thinking about a coaching career as his playing days wound down.

“It was about, ‘How do I build a culture to provide the support for that?'” Fatse said. “There are plenty of people with pretty good ideas of the swing and ways to train. It’s really like the training environment and culture that, I think, gets results. It was the culmination of those things and thinking about my experience at UConn that I tried to model.”

Fatse’s opportunity to build his own culture came in the form of the Advanced Performance Academy, a training facility he founded in Palmer back in 2010. Originally designed primarily for local high school and college players, the AP Academy quickly grew into one of the top facilities of its kind in the area and began to attract professional players from all over the country.

Over nine years at AP, Fatse trained a group of players ranging from Little Leaguers to big leaguers. He is credited with helping many professionals, including his former UConn teammate and Diamondbacks infielder Nick Ahmed, in the facility housed in a warehouse off of Exit 8 in Palmer.

“It’s not convenient,” Fatse said in an interview with MassLive in 2017. “The people coming here are really coming for the information and they’re coming for what we truly stand for. They’re not coming because it’s close.”

The reputation Fatse build at the academy was enough for him to land with the Twins as their hitting coordinator in Jan. 2019. Eight months later, in an effort to keep his focus in one place, Fatse made the tough decision to close down AP Academy after nearly a decade.

“The hardest piece is you build good relationships, whether it’s families you’ve seen from the time (the player) is 13 through their high school career, Division I offer and potentially pro ball or it’s the guys that are some of the clients who were flying in to work with us," Fatse said. “You build relationships with people. The normalcies of going in every day, setting the facility up and seeing the guys. You miss that.”

Fatse worked with minor leaguers throughout the Twins’ system in 2019, traveling to different affiliates during the season. His work, along with the reputation he had built back home in Massachusetts, caught the eye of the Red Sox’ front office.

Though Boston’s offense was not the club’s main problem in 2019, the club entered the offseason looking for ways to improve in any way it could after a disappointing year. Those changes included the departures of three coaches, including assistant hitting coach Andy Barkett, shortly after the end of the season.

As the front office huddled with then-manager and hitting coach to find Barkett’s replacement, a number of potential options surfaced. The team wanted more uniformity in its organizational approach to hitting as well as a more prominent emphasis on analytics.

The Red Sox were intrigued by Fatse’s approach, believing he brought a strong mix of being able to present new theories while keeping old school thoughts that the organization still believes in. The club wanted a coach who values modern trends like body movement and swing-path technology while remaining focused on the basics of balance and timing. To gain a better understanding of Fatse, Boston’s decision-makers even listened to an hour-long podcast interview he did with a host named Jonathan Gelnar last September.

Once it became clear that Fatse was a strong candidate, the Sox called the Twins to ask their permission to interview him. Twins farm director Jeremy Zoll called Fatse to see if he was interested in the position, Fatse answered affirmatively and after a phone call with Sox general manager Brian O’Halloran, Fatse was on his way to Fenway Park for an interview.

“It was cool going to Fenway” Fatse said. “It wasn’t like nerve-wracking. The people were very welcoming and very friendly. I could tell the atmosphere... The culture of the Red Sox, you could feel that right when you walked in. It was really comfortable. That was a big factor too, into wanting to join this group.”

For Fatse, who still remembers watching Mo Vaughn play first base in the first game he ever attended at Fenway with his father and uncle, the chance to come home was a no-brainer. In joining the Red Sox, he’ll assist Hyers and interim manager Ron Roenicke in helping the club get the most out of its lineup, partially serving as a liaison for the analytical department.

“A lot of the best players in the game are here offensively," Fatse said. “There are just so many guys here who take pride in their work and take pride in their swings. They’re really dedicated to the craft.”

For Fatse’s family, the new job will bring some challenges. Because Fatse’s wife, Melissa, is a teacher in Springfield and both his kids are in school, the family is keeping its home in western Mass. Fatse, who likes to show up early to the ballpark and thought the daily commute from the Springfield area would be too time-consuming, got an apartment in Boston for the season.

Because of the delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Fatse won’t get the chance to wear the Sox’ white home uniform for quite some time. But when he does, it’ll be a special moment he could have only dreamed of on a wiffle ball field that looked strikingly similar to the place he’ll now call his office.

“It still gives me goosebumps,” Fatse said. “Obviously, we’re focused on getting prepared for the first one. I’m sure the day of, it’s going to feel a lot different than the week before. I’m just excited to get ready to go and win a bunch of baseball games.”

Boston Red Sox’s Kyri Washington went from power prospect to accountant to pro scout after retiring at 25 because of 3 major injuries

Christopher Smith

Former Red Sox prospect Kyri Washington retired in August 2019, then worked as a staff accountant for Pacific Coast Supply, LLC, a building supply distribution company.

Washington belted 16 homers, 20 doubles and nine triples while driving in 73 runs in 103 games for Low- A Greenville during 2016. He bashed 10 extra-base hits and posted an .831 OPS in his first 25 games for High-A Salem in 2018. But three different arm procedures, including Tommy John surgery in 2017, limited him to 44 games from 2017-19.

He retired at 25 years old, calling it the hardest decision of his life.

“I didn’t really consider staying in baseball at first,” Washington told MassLive.com by phone Saturday. “I wanted to step away and be removed from it because retiring was a tough thing to do. You work your whole life to make it to the big leagues and play in the big leagues. That’s every kid’s dream that plays baseball. So after that ended, it was kind of a tough thing mentally to grasp and wrap my head around. I needed to take that time off. That’s why I went and worked in accounting."

He worked in Pacific Coast Supply’s corporate office located in Sacramento, Calif. His wife Mary is from California.

“I was handling, helping with the finances for seven different locations throughout the West Coast,” Washington said. “You just do what they need. It was a little unconventional. But I gained a ton of experience with doing that as opposed to just going into tax accounting or forensic accounting. It was a bunch of stuff put together. Auditing and a bunch of different other accounting tools all mixed together. So it was cool."

But he eventually found an even cooler job: Boston Red Sox professional scout. The Sox announced his hiring with several other personnel moves Feb. 28.

“I knew eventually there might be an opportunity because I talked to them (the Red Sox) after I retired. Talked about possibly working in baseball one day,” Washington said. “We said we’d keep in touch. And we checked in with each other every now and then. But scouting didn’t really cross my mind until they brought that up and told me about all it entailed. It was very intriguing."

He’ll continue to live in Sacramento and travel to ballparks across the country once MLB resumes its season, which is suspended indefinitely because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“It’s going out and evaluating minor league players and writing reports on them,” Washington said. “Just gathering information for the team to look at in the future if they want to make any moves.”

He’s ready to forge a new career path in the front office. He could see himself eventually working in higher levels of baseball operations.

“That’s the goal now, that’s the new dream: to keep working my way up and get as high as I can," Washington said. “With baseball, there’s really no limit to what you can do and what field you can go into after that. This opens up a lot of doors. I’m happy the Red Sox considered me for this and trust me with this role. It’s nice to be back in the family and be around all the guys again.”

Washington spent time down at the JetBlue Park complex this spring working in his new position. He enjoyed reconnecting with former coaches, teammates and trainers.

“It was refreshing to walk into the ballpark again and see all the familiar faces and give them hugs,” Washington said. “They’re congratulating me. So that was a great feeling.”

Washington tore his left labrum diving for a ball in right field at the beginning of the 2017 season. He rehabbed and tried to return, but he ended up needing season-ending surgery.

He returned for the 2018 season fully healthy and ready to go. He broke camp with High-A Salem but tore his ulnar collateral ligament 25 games in. He underwent Tommy John surgery.

He rehabbed again and felt strong entering 2019.

“The last day of spring, I tried to rob a home run in left field while playing at the Twins spring training place,” Washington said. “And I tore my right labrum. Three years, three pretty traumatic injuries. So you can imagine the mental part of it was even worse than the physical part of it. So it all just kind of built up and I had to make a decision on a baseball career vs. being with family. Yeah, it was a tough decision. But looking back now I don’t regret it because now I’m still in baseball and have this awesome job. It sucks not making it to the big leagues but this is the next best thing."

He underwent right labrum last season. He wanted to have the surgery no matter if he continued to play baseball or not. As he said, he wanted a healthy shoulder so he can play catch with his kids someday.

The Red Sox initially drafted Washington in the 23rd round (681st overall) in 2015 out of Longwood University.

“I always thought I would make it the majors one day,” Washington said. "I was fully confident in my strides I had made on offense and defense (in 2016). Because I wasn’t that type of player coming out of college. I really didn’t have a great understanding of how to put it all together. But the staff with the Red Sox got me to a position in 2016 where I really made a big jump in my progress and was able to have a really good year. Something I had never really done in terms of all aspects of the game.”

Washington did receive an opportunity to play at Fenway Park. He worked out there in college as a member of the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball league.

“We had the workout where you run the 60-yard dash," he said. “You do outfield and take BP. That was one of the better days of my life. It was really fun. I had never been to Fenway before just being from Virginia and not traveling much for baseball. So it was awesome.”

Washington finished his degree at Longwood while playing in Boston’s minor league system. The Red Sox drafted him as a junior. He said he wasn’t just going to give up with just one year remaining.

“I didn’t do three years for nothing,” Washington said.

His parents also made sure he graduated.

“One thing they said when I got drafted is, ‘You’re going to finish school. You’re not going to be like most other players who just play baseball. You’re going to have your degree as well,’” Washington said.

Longwood University is in Farmville, Va., where Washington was born and raised. He lived at home with his parents during his first offseason (fall 2016).

“I think I took three classes on campus,” Washington said. "Once spring training started back up, I couldn’t do that. They allowed me to take classes online. It was a little difficult because I’m not used to all strictly online classes. I’m used to the face-to-face interaction and learning in person.”

Washington began college undecided on a major and became interested in accounting while there.

“With the elective classes I took as a freshman, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at first,” Washington said. “And then there was an accounting class I really enjoyed. I kind of did some research on jobs after college. Because a lot of people after college are stuck without jobs. Or it’s hard to go into your field. So a lot of people end up having to get a job in something that they didn’t even study in. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to go that route and have a degree for nothing. I wanted to do something I learned."

Baseball — a game of spin rate, launch angle, exit velocity — is focused on numbers and analytics. Scouting should naturally fit an ex-ballplayer with a business administration degree and accounting concentration.

“Toward the end of my career the whole launch angle thing kind of surfaced,” Washington said. "You see some of the guys who are really invested in those things and it doesn’t translate all the time. So I kind of took bits and pieces, things that are helpful and would improve my game and try to manipulate my swing or whatever it may be to help that.”

Boston Red Sox roster: 29 players for first month would give Ron Roenicke flexibility to carry 3 catchers, Rule 5 pick Jonathan Arauz

Christopher Smith

Jonathan Lucroy and were competing for the Red Sox backup catcher job when MLB suspended the 2020 season indefinitely because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Interim manager Ron Roenicke told reporters March 10 he was open to carrying three catchers on his Opening Day roster. He previously had said he didn’t envision a scenario where he would carry three catchers. But he changed his mind.

MLB is expected to expand active rosters from 26 to 29 players for the first month of the regular season because of the delayed start.

That would help the Red Sox in more than one way. It would give Roenicke and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom the flexibility to carry three catchers. Spring training statistics can be deceiving. For an extra month of regular season games, Boston can evaluate whether Lucroy or Plawecki is the best fit to back up Christian Vazquez.

Boston also would have more flexibility to carry Rule 5 Draft pick Jonathan Arauz, who the Red Sox must keep on the active roster all season (barring an IL stint) or be offered back to his previous club, the Astros, for $50,000.

Both Plawecki and Lucroy were impressing during spring training camp.

“Plawecki’s at-bats right now are fantastic," Roenicke said March 6. “It’s a simple swing, he’s going (opposite field) and pulling the ball. His at-bats are really great for this time in camp. (Lucroy) is getting his hits, but he’s still trying to find his timing. He is, as I know, a really good offensive player who has not shown that offense the last few years. He’s still trying to figure out timing and all that.”

Plawecki went 9-for-19 (.474) with a double and two RBIs before spring training was suspended.

Lucroy, a two-time All-Star who played for Roenicke in Milwaukee, was 6-for-20 (.300) with two doubles and three RBIs. He is returning from offseason surgery on a herniated disc on his neck and he’s known for working well with pitchers. He certainly has the ability to help out a young Red Sox starting rotation now without David Price (traded to Dodgers) and Chris Sale (Tommy John surgery).

Arauz on roster?

Arauz, an infielder, has the defensive skills to play in the majors but he still needs to develop as a hitter. It’s difficult for any team to keep a Rule 5 Draft pick on its active roster for an entire season.

But a shortened season — which includes 29 roster spots during the first month and expanded 28-man rosters during the final month — makes things a little easier for the Red Sox if they want to commit to Arauz, who still is just 21 and worked to add power to his swing during the offseason.

The Athletic’s Keith Law on Jan. 16 ranked Arauz No. 7 among the best prospects to change teams during the offseason.

* The Athletic

Jackie Bradley Jr. is just like you, chasing his kids around and hoping for best

Jen McCaffrey

When Jackie Bradley Jr. answers the phone, his 3-year-old daughter, Emerson, is squealing in the background.

Bradley would normally be jetting around the country with the Red Sox at this time of the year. This week, the team was set to be in Baltimore before the home opener Thursday at Fenway. Instead, he’s at home with his wife and daughter in Naples, Fla., trying to stay fresh for when (or if) the baseball season begins. His workouts mostly involve chasing Emerson around their house, a familiar daily task for thousands of families across the country.

“Just trying to keep her active as well as learning,” Bradley said. “Her school is obviously not going on right now either. A lot of her activities she normally does aren’t going on, so just making sure we fill that void of time with things that she’s used to. Luckily, some of her stuff they’re doing virtually so she can still kind of do with the class.”

It’s become the strange reality of the past few weeks as much of the world has bunkered down amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite his proximity to Fort Myers and JetBlue Park, Bradley hadn’t been back to the park since a team meeting detailing MLB’s postponement of spring training after the final Red Sox game in Port Charlotte against the Rays on March 11. The Red Sox closed JetBlue Park last week to any players who were still using the facilities after learning a minor leaguer contracted the virus.

“Everybody is staying in touch in general,” he said. “I’m sure Ron (Roenicke, the manager) has reached out to everybody individually and other coaches as well and the players communicate, just because that’s what we do anyway, and just make sure everything is all in accord. But for the most part, I think everyone is just trying to make sure everyone is healthy and if anyone needs anything, don’t be afraid to reach out.”

No one knows if or when baseball will return, but late last week, MLB and the players association agreed to terms on a variety of topics that would be affected by a shortened or canceled season.

According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, the deal ensures players will have final approval on scheduling with the possibility of regular-season games played into late October. The potential exists for postseason games to be played at neutral sites in November if northern cities aren’t able to host them for weather- related purposes. A proposal of potentially playing in empty stadiums with no fans to mitigate any further spreading of the virus was also discussed.

“It would definitely be unique,” Bradley said of empty-stadium games. “I’ve never done it before, but if they feel that’s the best scenario in order to keep masses of people safe, then what can we do about it other than focus on what we can control and go out there and compete?”

One of the bigger agreements, however, regarded players’ service time. The sides agreed that players would receive the same number of days of service time as they had in 2019, meaning eligible players could enter free agency next winter even in a shortened or canceled season.

For Bradley, who needs 22 days of service time to qualify for free agency, that was important.

“I think it’s human nature to think about how things affect you and your family,” he said. “You obviously think about others as well, but yeah, it’d be a complete lie if I said I didn’t think about it. But also, I wasn’t necessarily worried about it because I feel like this is one of those things that there’s a lot of other things way more important at the moment. Lives are at stake, and making sure we can hopefully all do the right thing and get things going back the way we hope they can be.”

Bradley said he was listening in on the calls from the players association over the last few weeks and making sure he knew what was on the table.

“Hopefully, it gets things going in the right direction,” he said. “And once we get more information with how the CDC is going to move forward, then it’ll allow (MLB) to release more information.”

As someone who’s been in Boston’s system for nine years, Bradley knows how important baseball is to the city and how it’s served as a vessel for healing amid uncertainty in the past.

As a professional athlete, not playing games has impacted his day-to-day life in significant ways, but he recognizes the void it has left in fans’ lives, too, even with much more important issues facing the world.

“I think as a whole, everybody sees sports as events that bring people together,” he said. “There are a lot of lives that have been lost and a lot of families who have been affected, and I’m sure for certain family members and people, sports is their getaway, something everybody can gravitate towards and focus on and rally behind, so hopefully, we can get back to that and put some smiles on people’s faces.”