WEST PALM BEACH, FL (SportsRadio 610) -- Alex Bregman almost spilled the beans.
"Lance McCullers is pitching with a… I don't even know if I'm supposed to say what he's pitching with, but the guy has some heart," he said after the Astros lost the 2018 American League Championship Series to the Boston Red Sox.
During the 2018 postseason, McCullers pitched out of the bullpen in five of the Astros' eight playoff games. Nineteen days after that run ended, the team announced he underwent Tommy John surgery and would miss the entire 2019 season.
"I did know I was gonna need surgery," McCullers told SportsRadio 610 last week.
"We knew he needed it," Carlos Correa said.
"I think everybody knew," Bregman added.
McCullers always knew this day would come.
A shoulder forced him to change his mechanics in 2016 and led to his first ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) sprain. He estimates that caused a 10-20 percent tear of the ligament, which players can pitch through for years.
But by the time 2018 rolled around, McCullers says his UCL was torn halfway through. He still felt that he owed it to the team to finish out the season and try to defend the Astros' World Series title.
"I'll never forget what he did for us as a team and the type of dog that he is," Correa said. "He's a real one, one of the real ones out there, so people talk about doing anything they can to help the team win, that's a real definition of doing anything you can to help your team win."
Tommy John surgery calls for a 13-month rehab, and fortunately for McCullers he had plenty of friends and teammates who had made it back.
That didn't make the process any easier.
"The toughest part is post-surgery, coming to the realization that you're going to be out for a season. Coming to the realization that you don't know how you're ever going to feel again.
"I had no feeling in my forearm for months," McCullers said as he showed off the gnarly scar on his right arm that's become a rite of passage for all Tommy John survivors. "So that was scary. Everyone says, Oh, it's normal. But it's not normal for me."
Lance McCullers Jr. talks about his recovery from Tommy John surgery, becoming a father, and how much he's evolved in the time since."My priorities are a lot different than they used to be." pic.twitter.com/Dnv8hVO2Pp
— SportsRadio 610 (@SportsRadio610) February 14, 2020After making it through the dark days of his rehab, McCullers found out his wife, Kara, was pregnant with the couple's first child, which gave him a renewed focus on making it back to a big-league mound.
"There's about 70% success rate which is very good, but that's still a pretty solid margin of time that people don't come back, and as a 25-year-old kid, especially with a daughter on the way I just really knew I needed the grind and needed to be strong and come back."
McCullers' daughter, Ava, was born on Dec. 27.
"I think I checked off all the boxes for rehab," he joked. "I got tattoos, we had a baby, I grew my hair out. I checked all the boxes off for the typical rehab experience"
The new father with the tattoos and long hair still has baseball milestones to check off this spring. He threw his first live batting practice session of spring training Tuesday, and he's slated to start Sunday's game against the Cardinals, but that isn't what he's looking forward to most.
"There was a conversation about me possibly pitching in one of the exhibition games (at Minute Maid Park) and I was like no, the first time I go on that mound I want to be back on the mound for real," he said.
The last time McCullers pitched on the Minute Maid Park mound he did so with a torn UCL, knowing it was only a matter of time before Tommy John surgery would knock him out for over a year. He says he has no regrets and he's learned a lot along the way.
"I've really tried to let go of the past, let go of some of the poor decisions regarding my health that I've made, let go of projecting myself into the future and what I want to be in a year, two years. This process has taught me to stay in the moment and to just fight for every inch of every day."
More from Lance McCullers Jr. on how fatherhood's changed him and the support he got from his teammates while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery: pic.twitter.com/wqbAefeMuu
— SportsRadio 610 (@SportsRadio610) February 14, 2020Adam Spolane covers Houston's sports scene for SportsRadio 610. Follow him on Twitter @AdamSpolane.
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