WASHINGTON – Paul DeJong’s long road from the emergency room to the batter’s box made a symbolic pit stop Friday afternoon when he returned to the Washington Nationals clubhouse.
The area under his left eye still sported a nasty bruise nearly one month after the pitch that sidetracked his career. And DeJong has no illusions he’ll be back during the first half of the season, not after a 93-mph fastball from Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller struck him in the face, breaking his nose and swelling both his eyes shut, resulting in an overnight stay in a Pittsburgh hospital.
Surgery to repair his nose and sinuses was delayed by two weeks due to facial swelling. DeJong is still limited to very light exercises, or, as he put it, “riding a bike or doing air squats.”
And only now is he pondering the notion of getting back in the batter’s box, a process as much mental and emotional as it is his physical wounds healing.
“It’s far away,” says DeJong, the Nationals’ 31-year-old third baseman. “I think it’s different from any injury I ever had. It’s hard for me to say how I’ll feel. It’s going to take some trust, but I think the physical helmet, with the (protective) C flap, will give me some confidence to at least stand in there fearlessly and take my at bat like I always would.”
DeJong is now part of a fraternity in which no one wants membership – ballplayers who have survived a gruesome hit-by-pitch. Its ranks include superstars like Giancarlo Stanton or long-forgotten players like Dickie Thon, whose career never recovered from a 1984 beaning by Mike Torrez.
He plans to reach out to veteran outfielder Kevin Pillar, his teammate on the Chicago White Sox last season, for advice. Pillar was hit by a 95-mph fastball as a New York Met in 2021, suffering nasal and facial fractures and ultimately sitting out two weeks; he called the beaning “a weird out-of-body experience.”
DeJong’s experience was similar, terming the hours after he was hit as “the most uncomfortable feeling, without pain.” The injury forced him into a personal rampdown, relying on family caretakers including his 79-year-old grandfather, with whom he’s watched several Clint Eastwood movies in this period, noting a personal preference for “High Plains Drifter.”
Eventually, the down time will end. DeJong anticipates traveling with the team at some point and working up to swinging a bat.
Then, the time will come to get in the box. DeJong is ready for it to feel foreign – hopefully for just a moment.
“I’m glad I get to go to rehab games first, I’ll tell you that,” he says. “I think it’ll be something new but familiar at the same time. I’m interested to see how I feel, especially once there’s some close calls (on inside pitches), because it’s going to happen. I know it is. It’s just baseball.
“But just to go out there and compete again and kind of focusing on playing the game physically, getting my body in shape will help me take my mind off the what-ifs and any flashbacks. This is part of being an athlete, and a quote-unquote warrior. “I’ve had a lot of injuries playing this game and you always come back and eventually get to a normalcy point.”
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
