When he returns to the White Sox after his battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Liam Hendriks wants to be 100%. He might need a little more time to reach that level.
Hendriks told media Friday in Charlotte that the tentative plan going forward is for him to pitch again Sunday for the Triple-A Knights, followed by Tuesday or Wednesday before he and the Sox reassess his next steps. Working for the second straight day Thursday, Hendriks allowed four runs (including two home runs) in two-thirds of an inning.
“I’m not quite ready,” Hendriks said. “In all honesty, I just don’t want to be a burden upon the team, getting back and then having to be babied a little bit. I want to make sure I’m right before I get fully active and fully back.”
The Sox will be happy to go along with Hendriks’ self-evaluation. Yes, they want and need him back quickly as their disastrous start lingers and their bullpen struggles to replace him, but they have no problem listening to their all-star closer as he nears a major-league mound months after fighting for his life.
“I trust Liam. I think we all do,” Sox manager Pedro Grifol said. “We trust his self-evaluation and we trust the knowledge of his body and how he feels and his arm and what he knows of the big leagues and what level he needs to be at to perform here. We need Liam, but at the same time we want him comfortable when he gets here that he knows he could be at his best and helps us do some of the things we want to do.”
Because of his recovery from cancer, Hendriks is obviously behind where he would be at this point of the year. He didn’t have a traditional spring training, and effectively is getting ready on the fly against professional hitters instead of the back fields in Arizona or games where the results are soon forgotten. He also needs to get his body completely back to big-league levels just weeks removed from the traumatic and draining experience of chemotherapy.
Knowing that, perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Hendriks experienced a slight bump in the road, one that slowed him down a little bit as he tries to get his velocity and command back to the levels that made him one of the sport’s best short relievers.
But Grifol doesn’t seem disappointed that hasn’t occurred just yet, or Hendriks’ frank assessment of his own progress. Actually, Grifol praised Hendriks’ ability to grade himself.
“Self-evaluation is a really big part of this game, and he’s a really good self-evaluator,” Grifol said. “Not only do I appreciate it, I admire it, because I think the instinct is always to get back as quickly as possible, and his instinct and his knowledge is ‘I gotta get back when I’m ready to get back and make sure I’m able to contribute to what we want to accomplish here.’”
Even before he throws his first Sox pitch of the season, Hendriks has already accomplished plenty. Most importantly, he’s beaten cancer and been able to resume his career.
He’s also made an impact on the people around him.
“It’s awesome being around Liam. It’s just super inspiring,” said Jake Burger, who was in Charlotte on a rehab stint. “Every time I see him out there and talk to him in the clubhouse, it’s awesome to talk to him. And the spreads are pretty good down there too, courtesy of him and [rehabbing reliever Garrett] Crochet. It’s awesome seeing everybody progress.”