Dog toy, knife lead to spring injury for McKay
PORT CHARLOTTE — Brendan McKay has enough to deal with this spring, working on his hitting as he recovers from labrum repair surgery that will keep him off the mound until late March.
Then he missed a week of throwing after slicing his left index finger with a knife while readying a toy for his dogs.
Here’s how McKay told what will be added to the litany of odd spring training injury stories:
“There was a dog toy that they had gotten into while I was gone at the field and ripped off some of the tags, but there was still something stuck on it. So I was cutting that off and trying to get some other stuff off, and the knife just slipped and cut my finger a little bit.”
McKay called it “a pretty good cut” but said he was “pretty much back to good now.” He missed a week of throwing and two days of hitting but is now back on schedule.
The labrum surgery wasn’t too severe, as McKay needed “two small anchors” and had the capsule area cleaned up, while his rotator cuff checked out fine.
“Everything’s been feeling great so far,” he said.
McKay said he still has aspirations of being a two-way player in the majors, though most of his time thus far has been on the mound, going 2-4, 5.14 in 13 games in 2019. He missed all of the delayed and abbreviated 2020 season after being sidelined with COVID-19 at the start of the July training camp, then experiencing shoulder discomfort that led to the August surgery.
McKay has been taking batting practice several days a week but has not yet been allowed to face live pitching. He is slated to get into games at some point before the end of the spring.
Since he won’t start throwing off a mound until late March, it likely will be several months into the season before he will be ready to pitch for the Rays.