If Christian Vazquez needs any help recovering from Tommy John surgery, Matt Wieters is his guy.
The Baltimore Orioles catcher, who returned June 5 after a nearly yearlong recovery from the elbow ligament replacement procedure, told WEEI’s Rob Bradford on Wednesday that he’d “love” to share his experience“love” to share his experience with Vazquez after the young Boston Red Sox backstop underwent the surgery in April.
Wieters also stressed to NESN’s Guerin Austin that Vazquez will have to remember his rehab won’t be like most players’.
“Two biggest things for me is listen to your arm,” Wieters told Austin. “I’ve gotten everybody’s story, from Tommy John that went through it, and everybody’s story’s a little bit different, so you really got to listen to your own arm, and it’ll tell you when to push it and when to take a day off or so.
“On top of that is do your rehab like a catcher would, and I think that’s one thing that a lot of the rehab’s built for pitchers, and the catching workload’s a little bit different than the pitching workload. So that’s one thing I do is make sure you’re doing position-specific-type rehab for it.”
Wieters did say Red Sox manager John Farrell helped him out along the way, so Vazquez should be in good hands.
“I actually talked to Farrell when I was at the All-Star Game, and he was big and told me, ‘It’s going to be a tough year,’ ” Wieters told Bradford. “I think he had it twice, so he gave me advice to listen to your body and if it says, ‘Go early,’ then go early. And if it says, ‘Wait,’ then wait. That was something that helped me a good bit when I was going through the rehab process because I wanted to be at Opening Day, I wanted to be ready to go. But your elbow and your body don’t say that all the time.”
Thumbnail photo via Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports Images
