Projo Sox Blog

The baseball season is a long, slow grind, and Rocco Baldelli feels its ups and downs more than most. Baldelli suffers from a medical condition known as channelopathy, where the muscles do not recover at a normal rate after activity. He cannot play every day, and sees limited duty, mostly against lefties.

So for Baldelli, when the injuries that come with day-to-day baseball occur, it can be all the more frustrating. As soon as it seems he is actually getting in a groove, fate intervenes.

Today, Baldelli got the green light to play, after hamstring issues kept him sidelined for a few days. He made an error, then hit a home run, his second of the year. Four innings later, he was back in the clubhouse, forced out of the game after sliding hard into the right field stands wall attempting to catch an Aaron Hill foul ball.

It's not exactly how envisioned his return to the field.

"Trust me, I didn't wake up this morning thinking this was going to happen. My legs were feeling good the last couple days," Baldelli said.

"I felt good at the plate, I felt like I was seeing the ball pretty good.... It's something where, when you don't play every day, you want to go out there and help the team when you get your chance. I don't want to come out of the game. That's pretty much the end of it. For any reason," Baldelli said.

It is easy for his teammates and manager to see how much he wants to contribute. Moments after slamming his knee, Baldelli was contemplating returning to the field. When it was clear he shouldn't, he was apologetic for letting the team down. Those apologies, of course, were unnecessary.

"He was coming off the field, and he's like apologizing to me. I'm like... Rocco, you just dove into the wall," Francona said.

For the Cumberland-raised sixth overall pick in the draft, a sure-fire major league talent with athletic ability to spare, no longer being able to trust his body has been tough.

"I've battled some things, earlier this year. I wish I didn't really have to deal with that, but I'm not going to complain," Baldelli said.

"I don't complain about anything, or I try not to. Things could always be worse in life. I don't really look at things as getting all bent out of shape anymore. Would I have liked them to have maybe gone a little bit smoother? Yes. But it is what it is," he said.

After today's home run, Baldelli is now hitting .244 with two home runs and six RBI in limited duty. The 'limited duty' part has been tough for him. He came here knowing that would be the case, and dealt with the same format last year, but that hasn't made it any easier.

Part-time players, he's found, have less opportunity to get into those grooves where the pitch comes in looking like a beach ball.

"It's just a completely different experience. When you play every day, you get that feeling, at times, where you're locked in, you're seeing the ball very well. When you're not playing every day, you're playing once or twice a week, I don't know if you necessarily get that feeling at all, throughout the entire season," Baldelli said.

Baldelli should be able to return to the lineup by Tuesday's series against Detroit, but that is a full three days away, and the Sox don't face a lefty until Thursday.

The starts-and-stops are nothing new for Baldelli this year. The outfielder has already spent time on the disabled list earlier this season because of hamstring issues, and he was pulled from a game in Minnesota this week over the same concerns. He was also held out of subsequent Minnesota contests as a precaution.

It can sometimes be hard for the team to tell if he is dealing with the fallout from his condition, or has a muscle pull or strain that would affect anyone -- or if it is a combination.

"I think the muscles, the spasms all that, I think they're related. I think it's hard for him to tell sometimes what's a pull or what's a strain," Francona said.

Without a road map to adhere to, both the team and the player have needed to be extra open with one another.

Part of the reason Baldelli came to Boston this offseason hinged on trust. He trusted that the team would accommodate his rare medical condition, and the team trusted that Baldelli would be open and forthright about how he feels.

So far, both sides have lived up to that bargain.

"He's terrific. Walks in, tells you how he feels. I think it's kind of how we thought. We expected it to be that we have to keep up to date on it, and it's pretty much how we thought," Francona said.

 Tags  Boston Red Sox Dan Barbarisi Rocco Baldelli Terry Francona

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