THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Constant pain of varying degrees is a fact of life for professional pitchers, and some have a higher tolerance for it than others.
Shawn Hill has in the past torn up his elbow and simply continued to throw, so he can certainly handle his fair share of hurt. And that’s why coming off his latest surgery, the oft-injured right-hander from Georgetown, Ont., is asking himself if he might have been better off with a lower threshold for pain.
"I had just kind of gotten used to it, whether it was a good thing, bad thing, or just something stupid," Hill said Friday from Viera, Fla., after signing a minor-league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. "Going through it, you’re just thankful you can pitch through all that. Obviously it hurt my effectiveness at times and my numbers ended up being skewed by a couple of bad starts each year right before I got shut down when it got to be too much.
"At the time you’re thinking it’s a good thing, but now looking back at it, I wonder if I couldn’t have taken it, if they had to just shut me down and done it then, it might have been beneficial long-term."
There’s no way to know for sure, so the 28-year-old can only hope the second ligament-replacement injury on his right elbow last summer takes well and provides a window of health for his star-crossed career.
Hill’s first Tommy John surgery came in the fall of 2004, after he had made his big-league debut for the Montreal Expos and pitched for Canada at the Athens Olympics. Despite having a completely torn ligament in his elbow, he held Cuba to a pair of runs over six gutsy innings in an eventual semifinal loss.
That operation was initially deemed a success but after he didn’t pitch in 2005 while recovering from the procedure, he had to be shut down midway through the ’06 season with elbow soreness. In 2007 he was 4-5 with a 3.42 ERA over 16 strong starts before his health problems returned.
At season’s end, he had surgery to repair a compressed radial nerve in his right forearm and to fix a partially torn labrum in his left shoulder. In 2008, he made 12 starts before eventually settling on surgery to remove bone spurs from his right arm, and after signing with the San Diego Padres in 2009, he made three starts before the second Tommy John in June.
By then it was discovered that some bone had grown into his ligament, and another surgery was long overdue.
"In retrospect we look back at it now, and I’ve talked to numerous people that have been involved with things, and they said that they think I almost needed it back in ’06, not too long after my first one," said Hill. "Whether it was the surgery itself, or my own doing through rehab, or just some fluke accident, the first one just wasn’t quite right.
"I kind of just continued to do damage throwing through everything."
That’s why the Blue Jays intend to proceed cautiously with Hill, the latest in a long string of low-risk, potentially high reward signings by GM Alex Anthopoulos.
They tried to sign Hill last year before the 28-year-old landed instead with the Padres, and feel under the right circumstances he might still cash in on his front-of-the-rotation potential.
"We’re probably going to be a little more conservative about (Hill’s return)," said Anthopoulos, adding that the team will institute a new soft rule of waiting 12 months post Tommy John surgery before allowing pitchers to return. "This is about getting another talented young starter into the organization for more than just 2010."
Hill, for his part, knows he needs to take his time and will let the Blue Jays dictate the full pace of his return. He’s thrown three bullpen sessions already, has two more coming this weekend with his agent Lenny Strelitz in California, and will build up gradually from there into spring training.
If all goes well, he’ll be pitching somewhere by the middle of May or June, and experience has taught him not to push it.
"I see it a lot," said Strelitz, a former pitcher. "There’s these young guys who are on the cusp of accomplishing a dream or a goal, and they don’t want to say anything. They know there’s something that may not quite be right, Shawn may have been guilty of that as have others, and pushed it a little bit further than he should have.
"There’s always that area where you have to decide what is something that’s significant and what’s something I can pitch through."
Finding the right balance will help Hill become the 49th player to suit up for both the Expos and Blue Jays.
His first big-league came in the final interleague game between Toronto and Montreal, a 6-4 Expos win in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and he’d love to now pick up some wins for the Blue Jays, the team he cheered for growing up.
"Spring training is one thing, to be able to put on the uniform is one thing, but I don’t think I’ll really take that for the full value until I’m up in Toronto pitching for the big-league team," he said. "I’ve still got a ways to go to that point but I think it will be something neat to look back on."
