BOSTON — After spending nearly a week basically quarantined from his Red Sox teammates, Shane Victorino was back on the field Wednesday at Fenway Park.
The Red Sox outfielder, who had been battling a nasty case of the flu, began to ease himself back into baseball activity, completing conditioning work and doing some light throwing. Victorino said he just was happy to feel like a part of the team again.
“I feel good, health(wise),” he said, speaking from the dugout with reporters before the Red Sox’s game against the Texas Rangers. “I’m glad to be out of bed. It was a tough week. It was frustrating to be away from the guys, not being around. But I think it was a matter of not getting everyone else sick, and that was very important.
“It sucks, you know, not being around the guys, being around the team, being around the game, the dugout. But, again, the most important part was not getting anyone else sick.”
Victorino is on the 15-day disabled list as he recovers from a right hamstring injury — a recovery that has been slowed by his illness. The outfielder said Wednesday that he lost between 8 to 12 pounds over the last week, and that while he watched every Red Sox game during his absence — “every inning, every out” — he didn’t have the energy to do much of anything else.
Though he wouldn’t give a timetable for his return to game action (his DL stint ends April 15), Victorino said he felt like the work he was able to get in Wednesday was a step in the right direction.
“I did some jogging, and that felt fine,” he said. “But again that is (only) jogging, and my game is my legs, so it’s important for me to understand that and not want to rush to get it back. … (Wednesday) was Day 1 of baseball activity, and, as I said, everything went the way we wanted it to, and everything felt good.
“If I can come off (the DL) in six days, that would be my goal.”
Red Sox manager John Farrell said both Victorino and third baseman Will Middlebrooks — who’s also on the 15-day DL with a calf strain — will travel with the team on its upcoming road trip, which begins Thursday in the Bronx.
