It was an awful day in Tampa last September. Manny Machado, finishing up his first MLB season, one in which he earned a trip to the All-Star game, produced a laundry list of highlight-reel plays, and challenged baseball’s doubles record for a time, hit a slow ground ball to the right side.
As he approached first base, the Tampa second baseman bobbled the ball, kicking it into shallow right field. Machado stuttered his steps, anticipating perhaps being able to take second.
As a result, he stepped on first base awkwardly.
Then, in an instant, every member of the Orioles organization, every O’s fan, and Machado himself, were thrust into the same nightmare. Manny crumpled to the ground, grasping his left knee, and was very obviously in a world of pain. (GIF at this link, should you have any desire to put yourself through that again.)
As O’s fans, we wondered when – if ever – we’d get to watch Machado continue his ascent to stardom.
In an interview with ESPN’s Jayson Stark, Machado reveals that he too, feared for his future.
“Oh, no. I thought I was done,” the best 21-year-old third baseman in baseball admitted Thursday. “My first thought was, ‘There goes my career. There goes my knee. It’s going to be tough to come back from this.’”
Breaks your orange heart a bit to hear him say that, doesn’t it?
Those words remind us how lucky we are that Machado is back doing baseball activities today, just about five months later. There was no ACL or MCL damage to Manny’s knee, thankfully, but he did undergo arthroscopic surgery to repair his medial patellofemoral ligament.
While it’s only natural for fans to want to put a date on Machado’s return to the diamond – preferably “Opening Day” – Manny, Buck Showalter, and the Orioles medical staff have no such goals.
More from Stark:
Asked Thursday where starting on Opening Day ranks on his list of spring goals, Machado had a telling answer:
“Last,” he said. “That’s at the bottom of my list. It’s not even on my list, to be honest.”
And not surprisingly, that’s exactly what his manager wanted to hear.
“He’s certainly heard it enough from me, and from the doctors, I’m sure — that when we get it, we want to get it right the first time,” Buck Showalter said. “My biggest goal with him this year is not to have any setbacks. I don’t want to have any setbacks this spring.
So Machado’s most important date next month isn’t March 31. It’s March 15, the day he’s scheduled to visit his surgeon, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, in California. And it won’t be until at least that point that he can resume full baseball activities.
It’s still possible, said Dan Duquette, the Orioles’ executive vice president of baseball operations, that Machado could be cleared to play Opening Day. But until then, they’re all taking this day by day.
“When I’m ready, I’m going to be ready,” Machado said. “And everybody’s going to know it. And that’s when I’m going to be out there with the team, whether it’s Opening Day or sometime in April.”
As fans, we might get a bit frustrated if Manny’s name isn’t in the lineup on Opening Day. We just have to remind ourselves how we felt watching him writhe in pain at Tropicana Field last year, and how lucky we are to even be having these discussions right now.
