[ad_1]
ATLANTA – Mike Soroka has already gone through nine grueling months of rehabilitation after exploding his right Achilles tendon.
Now he’s starting over.
The burgeoning Atlanta Braves star spoke on Monday for the first time since learning the shocking news that he had re-pulled his Achilles and would need another major operation.
“This process is not something I wish on anyone,” said Soroka, who was on the Braves’ broadcast team for a game against the New York Yankees. “But I know I will be stronger for it. I look forward to that day when I can look back and draw strength from this whole process.”
Soroka, who made the All-Star Game as a rookie in 2019, hasn’t pitched since the initial injury three debuts in the pandemic-delayed 2020 season.
He had hoped to be ready to return early this season – he even pitched a game at the end of spring training – only to suffer a setback in his recovery that required another surgery.
Then, as he walked to the Truist Park clubhouse in May, shortly after a protective boot was removed from his leg, Soroka completely tore the tendon for the second time.
“I wasn’t even really walking yet,” Soroka recalls. “I was just limping around, putting some pressure under the ground and lifting my heel. About 10 feet from the front door here in Truist, it went ‘bang’. I think it was. none of us believed it. “
From now on, Soroka will not return to the Braves until 2022, at the earliest.
“No one has ever really seen this happen this far in the rehabilitation process,” he said. “We had overcome so many obstacles. I had thrown a spring training game. It’s not like we were fresh in the rehabilitation process.”
“It overwhelmed me,” Soroka added. “This moment was without a doubt one of the most difficult times of my life.”
While the prognosis for a full recovery is usually not so favorable for those who tear the Achilles tendon again, Soroka said doctors took extra steps during the second surgery to strengthen the area. .
They traced part of a hamstring over the tendon to give it extra stability and used older style sutures – which are a bit thicker than what is normally used – to further strengthen the leg.
“It’s never a sure thing. Sometimes weird things happen,” Soroka said. “If anything, it will be stronger than ever. At least that will be the goal.”
Still just 24, Soroka was expected to lead a young Braves rotation after going 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA in his first full year in the big leagues. In addition to appearing in the All-Star Game, he was second in the NL Rookie of the Year poll and sixth for the Cy Young Award.
This ordeal has certainly shaken his confidence.
“You spend nine months going through a rehabilitation process and basically it doesn’t work, you feel like you’ve failed,” Soroka said. “You immediately come back to, ‘What could I have done differently? And “What did I do wrong?” But you find that maybe you haven’t done anything wrong. You just couldn’t change it. “
He admitted that it was difficult to deal with having nothing to show for the long rehab he went through the first time around.
“In some ways, physically you know the past nine months have been kind of a mess,” Soroka said. “This is probably the worst part of it all. In getting over this, I learned a lot about myself.”
While he’s now certain to miss most of the full two years before he can cast again, Soroka remains confident he can make a full recovery.
“We are making progress every day,” he said. “It’s fun to see.”
[ad_2]
Source link