Eloy Jimenez said, “I thought I was going to die.”
The White Sox slugger was talking about an appendicitis attack 11 days ago, when he was rushed to a Cincinnati hospital. On Wednesday, Jimenez talked for the first time since having an appendectomy, and revealed he is targeting a return to the lineup sometime next week.
“I love that mentality,” manager Pedro Grifol said.
Jimenez has been stricken by numerous injuries during his career. So to go down with appendicitis, of all things, in season while riding an eight-game hitting streak with two homers will test an athlete’s mentality.
“When you start doing good things and something happens, you’re not going to feel good about it,” Jimenez said. “But this is life, it is what it is. Just move forward and keep working hard to get back to the lineup and help the team.”
Coming back from an appendectomy is not like an injury.
“Because a lot of the rehab is mental, just how fast do you want to go, want to push,” Grifol said. “I want him to push, and to the point where we have to back him off. And that’s what he’s doing right now. He wants to get back out there and be a part of this. I really like to hear that.”
Martin has Tommy John surgery
Davis Martin, essentially the sixth starter who would have been stashed at Triple-A Charlotte, had Tommy John surgery and is out for the season, the Sox said.
That makes Jesse Scholtens the next man up should the Sox, one of two teams along with the Blue Jays to have used five starters this season. Scholtens has made seven starts at Charlotte, pitching to a 3.99 ERA. He has been up for two relief appearances.
Martin, 26, owned a 4.83 ERA in 14 appearances, including nine starts, last season.
Hendriks update
Closer Liam Hendriks will fly to Chicago in the next day or two as the Sox assess his comeback from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. As Grifol said, there is no blueprint for a 36-year-old reliever with upper 90s velocity coming back from cancer after announcing he had it five months ago.
“With Liam it’s day to day, how he feels, how’s your body?” Grifol said. “It’s just constant communication with him, we don’t know the next step exactly but he’s on course.”
The initial, most optimistic plan had Hendriks being available Tuesday.
“But let me make it clear, there’s nothing going on, he’s on pace,” Grifol said. “We’re going to talk to see how we’re going to proceed.”
This and that
Grifol said Michael Kopech getting pushed back a day in the rotation was to give an extra day of rest.
The Sox manager also said the other starters will get pushed back periodically as well “to keep them going to recover from whatever they need to recover, whether it’s they’re tired or muscle soreness, whatever, it doesn’t matter.”
• Elvis Andrus, on the 10-day injured list with a strained left oblique, did some infield work and “is in a good spot,” Grifol said.
“Fortunately his wasn’t as bad, and he’s been able to ramp it up a little bit. I don’t think it’s going to be as long as we thought it was going to be.”
