Verdugo will be ready, says he's '100 percent'

BOSTON -- If the baseball season had gone on as originally scheduled, newly acquired outfielder Alex Verdugo would have missed the first four to six weeks due to the stress fracture in his back that he sustained last season with the Dodgers.

But with the sport on hold indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, Verdugo has gotten enough rehab time that he vows he will be in the lineup whenever the Red Sox play again.

“Yeah, physically I’m 100 percent,” Verdugo said. “I feel very good. Just moving around with everything, my swing, my throwing, running, I feel really good. Whenever the season starts, I think I’ll be ready. Whether that is soon, whether it’s a few months down the road, or whatever they may be, I think physically I’m ready.”

Verdugo -- the main piece in the deal that sent superstar Mookie Betts to the Dodgers -- will be an important player for the Red Sox once baseball resumes. He will start in right field and be a key hitting cog in a lineup that also includes Xander Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez and Rafael Devers.

The uncertainty of not knowing when the season will start is difficult for everyone connected to the industry. That said, Verdugo is doing everything he can to make his return to the field seamless.

“The thing I can tell you guys is that no matter what happens I’m training every single day,” Verdugo said. “I’m putting in the work as if there is going to be a season. I’m going to keep preparing and training and keeping my mind sharp so I’m already mentally locked in and physically ready to go for it.”

Verdugo, who turns 24 next week, is one of the few players who has stayed near the team’s Spring Training base in Fort Myers, Fla., during the delay. But his access to JetBlue Park was halted for a recent three-week stretch after a Red Sox Minor Leaguer tested positive for COVID-19.

“I still stayed active at home,” Verdugo said. “I was hitting, throwing a little bit and working out. Obviously didn’t have the amount of resources I do at the facility. We just got back in … last week was our first week back into the complex and yeah, we took it slow again, we just kind of ramped it back up, just seeing how the three weeks, how my body kind of looked and how it felt to my trainers.

“From there, I feel like we’re back on track. We’re swinging, people are throwing to me in the cage and then we’re taking BP in the cage and just kind of now, it’s just, the extra time is just giving me more time to get my endurance up.”

Verdugo notices a clear difference between his workouts now from a few weeks ago, and it is encouraging.

“When I first started rehabbing, after a couple of throws, I felt gassed, I felt fatigued, I felt tired,” Verdugo said. “Now, it's taking 60 throws, 65 throws, and then after that, 'OK, I'm a little bit tired now.' But just working our way up. The more swings we're taking every day, the more weights we're pushing in the weight room.”

If there is a second Spring Training, Verdugo thinks he might even be ahead of the other players this time.

“I think what it would take a normal player is what it would take me, maybe even less now, because I'm already doing everything,” Verdugo said. “I'm staying on my hitting, my running, conditioning, working out, throwing. I've been doing all that. All I've been doing is kind of adding to it. We started off with 20 throws. Then we go to 30, now we're 60, 90 throws a day. Once you start building up all that, your endurance, you start seeing that you're ready.”