Eovaldi’s health a focus
Injuries a mounting concern in rotation
FORT MYERS — Nathan Eovaldi isn’t the worrying type.
Not even after Chris Sale got an injection in his elbow and David Price was traded and Eduardo Rodriguez slipped and hurt his knee did Eovaldi suddenly feel the need to tip-toe around spring training to avoid getting hurt.
Getting hurt isn’t something he thinks about.
It wasn’t on his mind when he threw 97 pitches in relief on just one day’s rest in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, nor was it on his mind when he was rushing back from elbow surgery last May and suffered biceps tendinitis in the process.
He wasn’t thinking about getting hurt when he decided he was going to skip the proper starting pitcher build-up last summer and instead told Alex Cora he wanted to return as a reliever, a role he hadn’t held regularly since he was an 18-yearold in rookie ball.
Asked this weekend if he had any regrets, Eovaldi shook his head.
“At the time, I felt like I was ready to go,” he told the Herald. “You don’t know when you’re going to get hurt. You could go out there and be sore but be perfectly fine. And you can be sore and get hurt. You can be perfectly healthy and get hurt.
“I don’t think about injuries. If it happens, it happens. Then I’ll deal with it at the time. But when I’m on the mound competing, I’m not worried about it.”
Eovaldi’s teflon approach to baseball is what makes him so beloved by his teammates. And there’s no hiding the role his mentality (along with a 100-mph fastball) played in the Red Sox signing him to a four-year contract that’ll pay him $17 million a year through 2022.
But how do the Red Sox keep him healthy?
Given there doesn’t seem to be an answer for that, and that he’s averaged just 126 innings per season over his career, and that five different teams haven’t been able to turn him into a reliable 33start machine out of the rotation, maybe expectations need to change.
Perhaps it’s not Eovaldi who is underperforming, but the Red Sox who have overprojected.
They’ll enter the season with injury questions around Sale’s elbow, Rodriguez’s knee and Eovaldi’s, well, general propensity to get hurt. Rick Porcello and Price are gone. But the only starter they brought in via free agency was Martin Perez.
And the Sox say they’re trying to compete in 2020.
As the rotation struggled without him early last year, and when the bullpen ranked second-worst in the majors with a whopping 17 blown saves entering July, Eovaldi badly wanted to contribute.
“That’s what I battled with all last year, the injuries, coming back from it, rushing a little too fast, having a different role, trying to help out the bullpen, coming back to the rotation,” he said. “The biggest thing is staying healthy to perform at your best.”
Cora said last July that bringing Eovaldi back as a reliever would be “the quickest way for him to contribute.”
Eovaldi remembers it somewhat differently, noting that it was his suggestion to Cora that set the reliever plan in motion.
“I reached out, I told AC,” he said. “At the time, our bullpen was struggling. We didn’t have that depth. We had different guys coming up and down, leaving it all out there for us. I told (Cora), I said, ‘Hey, I don’t have to just come back in the rotation. I can build up out ofthe‘pen.’”
The decision seemed desperate. Pressure was building for former Sox boss Dave Dombrowski to trade for a reliever or give up on the season entirely. The Sox were 45-40 and 10 games back in the American League East.
But it was Eovaldi who once again wanted to put the team on his back.
“I thought that’d benefit the team the most,” Eovaldi said. “I didn’t do as well as I wanted to, but overall I think I did good enough to help the team out. Towards the end of the season I was able to go back to the rotation. And the bullpen was outstanding toward the end of the year. I feel like I served a purpose.”
Interim manager Ron Roenicke said this weekend that, “it’s hard to say exactly what the better value is, a good starter vs. a closer,” and, “we know he can do either one.”
Asked if he intends to be a starter all year, Eovaldi said firmly, “Yeah.”
Roenicke said the team hopes Eovaldi feels more comfortable to communicate with the training staff this year.
“I think it’s just constant feedback, what he’s thinking and what we’re thinking,” Roenicke said.
The Red Sox know who Eovaldi is. They love him for who he is. They paid him handsomely for who he is.
They should also know who he is not.
“I try not to think about anything like that, try not to add extra pressure to myself,” he said. “It’s one start at a time.”