Brian Johnson’s career flashed before his eyes. Quite literally, in fact.
Johnson took a line drive off the face in August 2012 while pitching for the Lowell Spinners in the annual Futures at Fenway event. He exited on a stretcher and suffered multiple orbital bone fractures, but the accident hardly derailed the left-hander’s quest to reach the majors with the Boston Red Sox.
“I said, ‘Oh my God, I just got hit in the face,’ ” Johnson recently told the Boston Herald’s Jason Mastrodonato. “My ears were ringing but no pain. Nothing.
“And that’s when I went to swallow, and it felt like my teeth, instead of being straight, were all going at an angle. But that was just swelling because my jaw had fractured and shifted.”
Johnson, now 24, has thrived at Triple-A Pawtucket this season. He tossed six perfect innings Friday for the PawSox, lowering his ERA to 2.60 through 10 starts. The 2012 first-round pick posted a 1.75 ERA in 20 starts at Double-A Portland last season en route to being named the Red Sox’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year.
It shouldn’t be long before Johnson debuts in the bigs. He certainly has earned the opportunity. With Boston’s rotation struggling to find consistency and Johnson taking care of business down on the farm, the southpaw is one development away from receiving his first call-up, which wasn’t even a consideration in that fateful summer of 2012.
“I didn’t even think about baseball during the recovery,” Johnson told Mastrodonato. “First things first, I wanted to look normal. I wanted to look in the mirror and not notice anything different.”
Johnson remembers being nervous immediately following the 2012 incident, as he was unsure the extent of the damage and whether it would impact his career over the long run. A few inches in another direction could have spelled disaster, but now Johnson is using the accident as an additional source of motivation.
“It puts everything in perspective a little bit more,” Johnson told Mastrodonato. “Like the doctor explained to me, if I don’t move right before that ball hits me … I lose my eyesight and I’m done playing baseball.
“I guess for me, I kind of just, when you’re having a bad day or a bad outing, it puts things in perspective. Work your tail off, do whatever you can, because I almost had to learn the hard way.”
Johnson almost faced a devastating reality. Instead, he’s on the cusp of achieving his dream as an even stronger individual.
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Thumbnail photo via Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports Images
