Josh Beckett admitted recently that he thought about the possibility of retirement. It appears those thoughts were short-lived.
Beckett, who has been shut down for a month because of numbness in the fingers of his pitching hand, said Wednesday that he’s confident his career is not over, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Obviously, the right-hander is going through a difficult stretch. He was 0-5 with a 5.19 ERA in eight starts with the Dodgers before going on the disabled list with a groin strain. While on the DL, he began suffering from nerve irritation, which cast some doubt over his big league future. But although it remains unclear when Beckett will return, the right-hander says he fully expects to overcome the ongoing adversity.
“We’re going to do everything we can to beat this thing without surgery,” Beckett said, according to the L.A. Times. “We’re going to be doing a lot of aggressive rehabilitation of trying to get the outlet where the nerve and artery and stuff go, under the clavicle and above the first rib. They are going to try to open that up. We’ll do some things to shift some things around and maybe work on posture a little bit.”
Other major leaguers have come back from nerve irritation in the past. Knowing that, plus gaining a better understanding of the actual injury, made Beckett more optimistic about his future. Now, it’s time to see if the rehab route works or if he’ll require surgery — something he reportedly called “Plan F.”
“It’s tough,” Beckett said. “I don’t want to walk around here with a ski mask and steal paychecks. That’s not fun, and I want to help these guys win and be a part of that.”
Winning hasn’t exactly been easy for the high-priced Dodgers this season — Beckett or no Beckett — so he’d hardly be the only one donning a ski mask, as he so eloquently put it.
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