Eickhoff no longer numb about his prospects
PHILADELPHIA » The last time Jerad Eickhoff pitched in a Phillies game was a day to forget. He gave up three runs before recording an out in the first game of a doubleheader with Atlanta last Aug. 30. He was two batters into the third inning when he was removed from that game, which would end up in a 9-1 loss that would precede a Braves sweep.
It ended an unproductive and frustrating season for Eickhoff, but perhaps it wasn’t widely known he ended it himself.
“That was one of the hardest things I had to do, pull myself out of a game,” Eickhoff said Tuesday in the Phillies’ clubhouse. “But it’s going to make me a better pitcher and better player because of it, because of going through all the things I went through. Whether it was mechanically, my thought process, mentality or whatver you want to call it, it’s going to make me a better player going forward.”
“It” was a mechanical flaw that Eickhoff developed that not only resulted in frequent losses of command, but eventually became a daunting health issue that was downright scary for a right-handed power pitcher. Eickhoff began encountering some numbness issues in his throwing hand, and he wasn’t clear on why.
“I stopped when I actually had to stop,” said Eickhoff, who fell to 4-8 with a 4.71 ERA and 1.523 WHIP in 24 starts last season. “I have a very high tolerance for that, maybe higher than most. When I stopped, that’s when I had to stop.”
He had to stop because of a nerve irritation that evolved from, “opening too soon, and putting a lot of pressure on my pec and elbow and everything.”
It eventually became a problem he simply couldn’t work through.
“It wasn’t pain, it was just weakness,” Eickhoff said. “It was strange, the nerves are beyond me. It was affecting the three primary fingers in my (throwing) hand. Throwing a fast ball, it’s the three fingers that are essential. I just lost feeling ... it was almost like getting hit in the funny bone.”
Eickhoff lost his first seven decisions, not getting a win until July 9, his walks to strikeouts ratio worse than it should have been. He seemed to get better in July and early August but by the time of that doubleheader, the numbing problem wasn’t going away.
“It would come and go,” Eickhoff said. “That final inning in warmups I would feel it. Every pitch was the same. I’d throw it, the feeling would not come back. I’d throw another one, the feeling would not come back. That’s kind of when I went, ‘I can’t feel the baseball. I can’t feel what I’m doing. It’s time to stop.’”
Eickhoff was shut down for the final month of the season, but was relieved when he found out the problem could be corrected without surgery. Rehab was all about rest. And the rest would be taken care of later by video sessions and altering his mechanics.
“As crazy as that sounds, taking my second opinion in Dallas, they said the nerves are really funky and as soon as you flare those back up that whole two months doing nothing process starts all over again,” Eickhoff said. “So to take enough time to make sure the nerves are calmed down and everything is fine before you start going was key. I think we did that and I haven’t felt anything since.
“The biggest thing was not having to have surgery. Things could have went so completely in the other direction. I could have had surgery and I could have been out all this year. And to not have surgery and to realize it was just a nerve and was no serious damage, that’s what I’m taking most out of it. I’m just very fortunate and very lucky.”
Now with spring training on the horizon, Eickhoff, who only began throwing again during the first week of November, is determined to get his career back on track.
The first step is to get a spot in a Phillies rotation that is uncertain at best at this stage. The club continues to assess the free agent market and potential trades with an eye on acquiring a starter.
“It’s going to be competitive,” Eickhoff said. “I say it every year and I truly mean it: I compete for a job every year. It’s not a given. It’s not something that’s handed over to me.”