PHILADELPHIA – The smile on Brandon Woodruff’s face, the eagerness in his voice and the prolonged answers he was giving said it all.
He finally gets to pitch in a baseball game again soon and he couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
Woodruff, on the shelf since April 7 with a subscapular strain in his right shoulder, is slated to begin throwing in rehab games this weekend beginning with a start for the Class High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers on Saturday.
“Super excited. It’s been over 3 months,” Woodruff said. “It’s had its ups and downs. It’s been at times very smooth and at times I’ve had to stop for a little bit, but now I feel like my body is finally responding to a heavier load in the bullpens. I’m trying to really get after it in my bullpens and recover.
“My body is telling me that I’m recovering well enough to go out and pitch. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think that I could go do it.”
It’s been a long, slow, arduous process to get back to this point for Woodruff. At first the injury was believed to be just inflammation, which would require minimum stay on the injured list. Then came the news that Woodruff would be out until at least the end of June. Once Woodruff finally started throwing bullpens in mid-June, he had to back off for more than a week because his body didn’t recover properly.
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“It’s been tough,” Woodruff said. “I have high expectations for myself and for this team and not being able to go out there with the guys you come to the field with every day and not be able to help win a baseball game with them, it sucks. I want to be out there worse than anybody.
“It’s not fun. I’m so excited to go out and just try to contribute. I don’t know how it’s going to go, but I’m going to go out there and give it my all.”
Woodruff is back on a mound in a game setting this weekend, but his return to Milwaukee is still a bit away.
He still needs to build back up as a starter, which will require at least three starts and likely more than that.
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A rough timeline puts his first game back with the Brewers in the second or third week of August.
“I’ve missed 3 months. There’s no denying that part of it,” Woodruff said. “I’d love to say, ‘Hey I can go out and make 2 or 3 starts and be back.’ I hope that’s the case but there’s a plan laid out where I’ve got enough time to where if I need to keep throwing in rehab games I can. There’s a certain point I gotta get to, where I’ve got a lot of volume under me in terms of pitch count and being able to get up at least four or five or six times.
“That’s more important. Once I can get to that point, I’ll feel comfortable being back.”
The good news on pitchers wasn’t limited to Woodruff, either.
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Lefty Aaron Ashby, who has missed the entire season after undergoing shoulder surgery in April, is throwing bullpens as the Brewers’ complex in Phoenix and is close to game action, manager Craig Counsell announced Tuesday.
The Brewers plan to ramp Ashby up as a reliever, which will allow for a much quicker process for him to return to games at the big-league level.
More: Brewers are hoping Wade Miley’s elbow injury will require a minimum injured list stint
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brandon Woodruff injury update: Brewers pitcher to begin rehab starts
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