McHugh initiates ‘very long process’
ANAHEIM, Calif. — In what manager A.J. Hinch described as part of “the infancy stage of a very long process,” starter Collin McHugh played catch Friday for the first time since he was diagnosed with an elbow impingement in early April.
McHugh threw out to only 45 feet on the field at Angel Stadium before the Astros’ series opener
against the Los Angeles Angels.
He said he will play catch probably every other day for roughly the first week of his program but acknowledged his progress will depend on how his arm and body respond.
“(I) felt good,” he said. “(My) body feels good. I’m going to monitor how my body reacts to it and go from there.
“But we haven’t really put together a timetable of when we really want to ramp it up or when we want to be on the mound by or when we want to be in games by. But hopefully this is a good sign of things to come.”
McHugh has a long way to go to rejoin the Astros’ rotation.
Once he progresses with his throwing enough to pitch off the mound, the 29-year-old righthander essentially will have to go through what amounts to an entire spring training.
“I mean, honestly, even an offseason because I barely got a spring training, too,” he said. “I faced big league hitters for two innings.
“It’s going to be a slow process. I have to kind of be patient with it. As much as I want to ramp it up and want to get back out here and help the guys quickly, we know it might not be as straight forward as that.”
McHugh hadn’t thrown since April 6, when he exited his rehab start with Class AAA Fresno after only one inning complaining of tightness in his elbow and biceps.
He had been on the DL to begin the regular season because he was behind schedule all of spring after reporting to camp with “dead arm.”
When the Astros announced April 8 that McHugh had been diagnosed with a posterior impingement, they said the pitcher would be shut down for six weeks.
So does playing catch Friday make him ahead of schedule?
McHugh said he asked the team’s physician, Dr. David Lintner, the same question.
“It’s hard to say because they pretty much put a four-to-six window on just about anything armwise,” McHugh said. “He told me initially, ‘It could be six weeks. It could be 12 weeks. It could be three weeks. You just don’t know how your body’s going to react.’ I hope this means that we’re doing something right.”