You’ve heard of switch hitters. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Rockies’ first switch pitcher. It’s true. Left-hander Jeff Francis recently spent a month being a right-hander.
“My arm was in a sling, so I did everything right-handed,” Francis said. “Brush my teeth, eat, shower . . . everything. I never realized how hard it was to brush your teeth with the wrong hand. You try to put food in your mouth and miss. The fork kind of goes off to the side. That wasn’t a lot of fun.”
But Francis knew this season wasn’t going to be much fun. And the Rockies, desperately in need of strong starting pitching, may have seen their season go up in smoke before it started when they lost Francis in February.
It’s one thing to miss a start or two, or a month or two. But Francis has known since late winter, when he had a torn labrum repaired, that he wouldn’t throw a pitch in 2009. He’s still coming to grips with his idle time. There was a time not so long ago when he figured his left arm was good to go for an entire career.
“I thought I had one of those arms,” Francis said. “I thought I could just throw, throw and throw.”
Why wouldn’t he? By 2008, he had become the most successful starter in franchise history while racking up big inning totals.
He pitched 183 2/3 innings in 2005, 199 in 2006 and 215 1/3 in 2007, when he won 17 games, started Game 1 of the World Series and finished ninth in the National League Cy Young voting. He won 44 games in those three seasons, fourth-best in the league.
And then the pain set in, then the unknown.
Francis tried to pitch last season but was never right. He ultimately landed on the disabled list, his shoulder hurting him more than his 4-10 record and 5.01 ERA. MRIs didn’t reveal any structural damage, so the decision was made to shut him down indefinitely last summer in hopes rest would have him ready for spring training.
Never happened. Instead, with the pain persisting, Francis agreed to exploratory surgery, during which team surgeon Dr. Thomas Noonan discovered a tear in the labrum. Strange as it may sound, Francis was encouraged to hear the news.
“Going into surgery, I didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “For them to find a tear in my labrum was almost a relief. The doctor told me, ‘After I saw the tear, it made perfect sense what you were feeling.’ It made me feel like I did the right thing, that I have the best people looking after me.”
His next major step in rehab will come in a month, when he picks up a baseball for the first time since surgery and starts soft tossing. Eventually, he’ll climb that mountain, or so it will seem, and return to the mound. If all goes well, he should be pitching in the Arizona Instructional League by fall.
But first, there’s the matter of getting through the boredom of rehabilitation, the forced inactivity on the field, the feeling of isolation from his teammates. It’s a surreal existence, knowing you’re not going to throw a pitch for an entire season.
“The days seem a little longer, especially when the team is in town,” Francis said. “When I’m at the ballpark, I find myself wanting to be out there so bad, it makes it more difficult.”
Life in long-term rehab moves in super-slow motion. It’s a strange feeling for a top-flight athlete. Francis has discovered patience he never knew he had.
“It’s like being in a bubble,” he said. “It does drag on. There are a lot of minutiae exercises. Sometimes you show up and say to yourself, ‘I’ve got to do this again?’ It doesn’t really feel like a workout, but that’s part of it.”
Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook knows the feeling. He went almost a year between big-league starts when blood clots in his lungs nearly cost him his life in August 2004. If anyone knows what Francis is experiencing, it’s Cook.
Their lockers are a few feet apart in the Rockies’ clubhouse. So what kind of sage advice does Cook have to offer his longtime teammate?
“He needs to suck it up and get back out there and pitch,” cracked Cook.
Responded Francis, “That’s a popular answer around here.”
Therein lies Francis’ salvation. It’s a long road back, but he has his teammates, the only ones he has ever known, by his side. Nagging him, dogging him, living by the code of the clubhouse, trying to make him feel like one of the guys when the temptation is to feel otherwise.
“I know what kind of grind it is,” Cook said. “I’ve talked to him to try to help him keep a good attitude. You feel sometimes people just walk by you and look at you like, ‘What are you even doing here?’ Being on this side, I don’t look at players like that, but it’s hard not to have that feeling.”
Said Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta: “He seems like the same guy to me. I see him bringing the same stuff to the table that he always has. Laughing, joking . . . That’s just Jeff. It’s got to be a tough situation, but from the outside looking in, it seems to be going pretty well.”
The big question, of course, is whether Francis can again be a top-of-the-rotation starter. The answer could be years away.
“My teammates are telling me to make sure I get it right, to not rush it back,” Francis said. “The way I see it, if I get this fixed 100 percent, I could add some time to my career instead of just laying some patchwork down, trying to patch through it. If I make sure it gets done right, I can come back better than ever.”
Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
