It’s thumbs-up for Realmuto’s spring debut
J.T. Realmuto provided 353 feet of evidence in his first at-bat Tuesday night that his thumb is just fine. If that wasn’t enough, a couple of onthe-money throws to second supplied the rest of the evidence.
Realmuto marked his return to the Phillies’ lineup Tuesday with a solo home run, two runs scored in three plate appearances and six innings behind the dish. He had missed all of preseason with a thumb injury that he’d been rehabbing on his own. But in his first test, a 9-3 Grapefruit League loss to Toronto, the injury passed with flying colors.
“It felt good,” Realmuto said via Zoom. “The thumb feels like it’s all healed up. I actually didn’t feel it at all out there. I think we took just enough time to come back, to let it heal up as much as it needed to and it felt great.”
Realmuto said he’s been free of any pain or even noticing the injury the last few days. The last frontier on their pain resolution came when he threw the ball, with some lingering pain after
bullpens lately, though it didn’t alter his throwing program.
Passing the tests Tuesday, with the bat in his hand and with the ball, is a big thing for him.
“That’s something I was hoping would get tested because that was the last thing that I was worried about, an explosive play like that, throwing the ball around,” Realmuto said. “I didn’t feel it either time, which was great. That’s always good. It definitely felt even better out there than I thought it would.”
“I thought he looked pretty good,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He seemed to be moving behind home plate. I like the strong throw that he made. Obviously he swung the bat well. I feel good
about it.”
Girardi said the plan moving forward is to get Realmuto more at-bats Wednesday in the array of simulated games the team has going on. He’ll be back behind the plate Thursday.
As for Realmuto, he feels like the thumb injury is entirely behind him and that his path to playing on opening day is wide open.
“It’s obviously not only my decision,” Realmuto said. “If the organization feels like I have enough at-bats and my game is ready … I think healthwise, I’ll definitely be ready. It’s up to them on whether performance-based I’m ready, but I’m pretty confident I’ll be there.”