Just about a year ago, Zack Wheeler knew there was something seriously wrong in his elbow, as he was dealing with constant pain when throwing a baseball.
The pain got to a point he reportedly was close to being scratched from a start against the A’s last summer.
He would soon learn there was a torn tendon in that gem of a right elbow. But he would persevere and ultimately get through the second half of the 2014 season, during which he went 6-3 with a 3.04 ERA.
After pitching in several Grapefruit League games this past March, the discomfort in Wheeler’s elbow had not gone away. So he underwent an MRI which not only showed the torn tendon, but now a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow that required Tommy John Surgery in order for him to pitch again.
So on March 25, Wheeler committed to what ultimately will be a longer journey back from elbow surgery thanks to the torn tendon in his elbow. It will push his return back around mid-July of 2016.
It was such a shame because of all the promise he showed in the second half of the 2014 season. He finally started to fire on all cylinders, and fulfill all of the promise he came with when the club had acquired him for Carlos Beltran on July 27, 2011. He was going to be a big part of what’s happening right now.
And, he was doing it with a torn tendon in his elbow.
But on Monday, after spending day after day and week after week in the team’s minor league complex in Port St. Lucie, Wheeler reach his first significant milestone.
He picked up a baseball, and threw it to somebody.
Yes, it was very abbreviated. He lightly made 30 throws, 15 of which stepped him up to 60 feet, then he threw 15 from 60 feet.
That was it, and Wheeler and everyone else on the field were very happy.
“I felt good. I felt strong,” Wheeler said after the throwing session. “I’ve been working pretty hard to get to the point where I am now, in the weight room and out there on the field. To finally go out there and throw felt good and rewarding.”
Those days in the weight room in the minor league complex seem so far removed from the reality he has grown accustomed to in the big league clubhouse. He’s surrounded by young, aspiring players playing in the Gulf Coast League, spending most of his time building his strength and stamina back to where it will need to be when he toes the rubber for the Mets in just about one year’s time.
“I get here at about 9 AM,” Wheeler explained. “I go out to the field and stretch at 10 AM. I stretch and run [on the back fields], then I come back inside and then work in the gym. I do upper body work two days a week, work lower body two days a week. Wednesday is a ‘take it easy’ day – I do running and core that day.
“But, I have a pretty filled up week of working out,” Wheeler continued. “I’ve been trying to take advantage of it as much of I can. I usually get out of here by 12:30 or 1.”
Wheeler doesn’t know when this routine is going to change, and when he might reach the next milestone in his recovery process, or what that’s even going to be.
“I really don’t ask a lot of questions,” he said. “I just do what they tell me to do. [Jon Debus] knows how to run the recovery from Tommy John. They’ve seen a lot of Dr. Altchek’s guys, so I feel comfortable with what they’re telling me.”
Wheeler has always been billed as a quiet kid, or the opposite of Matt Harvey. But that’s actually not true. He is always smiling and full of personality. Seemingly everyone gets along with him wherever he is, whether it’s in the clubhouse at Citi Field or the rehabilitation center just north of Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie.
But Wheeler isn’t happy to not be a part of a very special pitching staff in New York, but not being with his teammates gives him a reason to press on during this recovery process.
“It stinks not to be up there with those guys and pitching with them,” Wheeler said. “All I can do is dream. I am dreaming about it right now – I wish I was up there.
“There’s always next year,” he said. “That’s my whole motivation, To be able to join those guys and win a World Series next year. It should be a lot of fun, and that’s what pushes me everyday down here.”
But, what if the Mets are in the World Series this year? Certainly he will not be able to pitch for the Mets in October, but he’s hopeful he will be able to leave Port St. Lucie and join his teammates should they be playing past October 4.
“If they let me,” he said with a smile.
Just Mets 