SAN FRANCISCO–In a normal offseason, Giants’ closer Mark Melancon begins throwing around December 15.
If all goes according to plan, this offseason will be just like any other for San Francisco’s closer.
Seven days after Melancon had surgery to release the fascia around his pronator in his pitching arm, he spoke in the Giants’ clubhouse about his surgery, and said that he believes that undergoing a procedure was the proper course of action to deal with an injury that’s lingered throughout the 2017 season.
“I think it went really well,” Melancon said. “Going in, they were 100 percent confident that that was the right approach, but you never know. And I think after the surgery, they were even more confident that it was the problem so I was happy to hear that.”
Unlike Tommy John surgery, which is increasingly common among pitchers at all levels of the sport, Melancon’s surgery appears to be extremely rare. Both Melancon and Giants’ trainer Dave Groeschner said that it’s not an injury that’s prevalent in baseball players, but they both hope that Melancon is able to pitch with the same level of effectiveness following his surgery.
“What they said afterwards, going in there and seeing what they saw, they were fully confident, so I guess it is a relief, yeah,” Melancon said.
In order to perform the surgery, Groeschner said Melancon’s doctor cut in through the pitcher’s old scar from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in 2006.
“They went in through his old Tommy John scar,” Groeschner said. “They just had to be careful because he had his ulnar nerve moved before during his other surgery.”
Melancon has mentioned at different points during the season that he’s experienced pain and tightness in his pronator in years past, but that the pain has typically subsided. This year, the pain didn’t subside, which forced the Giants’ closer to the disabled list for the first time in his career.
The Giants officially shut Melancon down after a September 5 appearance in Colorado against the Rockies and a week later, he traveled to Los Angeles for his procedure. By keeping Melancon out of action for the season’s final four weeks, the Giants allowed him an ample amount of time to recover in time to begin a normal offseason training program.
“We expect him to start doing some rehab here within the next week,” Groeschner said. “But we expect him to start his normal throwing program which is around mid December so as far as his throwing, it should be a normal offseason. And that’s what we wanted.”
Even though Melancon will have over three full months to meet his December 15 target date, Groeschner emphasized that the Giants will be conservative with his rehab program. Melancon said Tuesday that he could have had the surgery performed earlier, but that he felt it was important to continue pitching because he desired to help the Giants in any way possible.
“It was something where I wanted to be out there,” Melancon said. “It was a challenge every night but when they put the ball in your hands, you feel like you want to go out there and produce. You know, it’s competitive nature to go out there.”
Melancon said that because he dealt with the pronator injury since the start of Spring Training, his entire routine was disrupted this season. Though that might have contributed to some of his struggles, Melancon said it was reassuring that he was still able to pitch on a regular basis without following the same schedule he has for much of his career.
“That was the interesting part,” Melancon said. “I had to really reduce a lot of the stuff that I did in between outings, on a day-to-day basis, just my routine was messed up a little bit. But in that, I think it brought some good stuff in just knowing how good our bodies are and how much repetition you’ve had and trusting the fact that it’s going to be there when you haven’t necessarily practiced it for the last four or five days like I normally would have. So being able to go out without doing the same stuff was kind of reassuring.”
With Melancon out, former Texas Rangers’ closer Sam Dyson has emerged as the Giants’ interim ninth inning arm, converting 13-of-14 opportunities since joining San Francisco’s bullpen in early June. Though Dyson has regained his form after a disappointing first half of the season with Texas, Bochy indicated that Melancon will enter Spring Training as the Giants’ closer come 2018.
“I haven’t sat down and talked to him (Melancon), I don’t think I really need to,” Bochy said. “He’s going to know what his role is going to be. Right now, the focus is on getting him healthy, get him back and come Spring Training, I think we’re going to have the makings of a very good bullpen. With what Sam Dyson has done for us, you look at how Strick (Hunter Strickland) is throwing the ball, you’ve got Will Smith. As far as role, that’s something I’ll talk about later with all of these guys.”