Mookie Betts made his much-anticipated return to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup Monday against the San Francisco Giants after a two-game rehab stint with Triple-A Oklahoma City.
Betts ultimately missed five weeks due to his right oblique strain, which was within the timeframe the Dodgers anticipated. The Dodgers were careful not to rush him back before he was ready, in fear of causing a setback.
Now that he’s returned, Betts does not expect his oblique to require monitoring outside of his normal day-to-day preparation.
The total recovery time took longer than Betts originally anticipated, but that was because he underestimated how long it takes for an oblique to heal. He confirmed that he had no setbacks during rehab.
“I just didn’t really realize how long it takes for it to really heal. I felt pretty good, pretty fast, actually,” he said. “But just some of the movements that I couldn’t do, they kind of just lingered for a long time.
“I was trying to hurry, but obviously, doctors are like, ’It just takes a month for it to heal.’ And then you have to do all your prep to get back to playing. So you can’t really rush time.”
Once Betts was given the green light to ramp up his activity, he still had to battle through some discomfort, but he felt re-injuring his oblique was not going to be an issue.
The soreness mainly appeared when taking swings in the lead up to his rehab assignment. Even though the right-hander had to ease up on his level of activity, he felt as though he “turned a corner” in the recovery process.
“I mean, there was a little soreness, but some of the soreness is just from it trying to heal. You get over the point where it’s sore that you can re-injure it, and now it’s sore where it just needs to get its strength back,” he said. “And so once I got over the hump of it’s sore, but you’re okay to keep going, things kind of progressed really fast.”
One of the pitfalls of rehabbing an injury is overcompensating or undercompensating in various muscle groups, which can lead to issues of their own down the line. Betts avoided this by using some of his own resources.
“My company, Core Impact, which measures all my muscle activity, I was able to wear that and know exactly what was going on on the inside, and understand when my muscles were firing, when they weren’t firing, at what levels they were firing, and I was able to kind of monitor my workload that way,” he said.
“And as the greens started showing up, as far as my muscles firing, the more I could kind of add on, and add on, and add on, and knew it was safe. So using that tool definitely helped me add on, as far as amount.”
Mookie Betts completed rarity with rehab assignment
Betts has preferred to avoid Minor League rehab assignments throughout his career. Prior to this season, the right-hander last appeared in a Minor League game in 2015.
The change in tactics was due to the type of injury he was dealing with.
“I think this time it was more of a muscle, the other times it was kind of a bone. I broke my hand and whatnot,” Betts said.
“So this time, I just didn’t want to get out here and then hurt it, and then have to make a bunch of roster moves and all those other things. So really just kind of test it down there, so nothing had to affect up here. I think that was just the best way to go about.”
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