There is still a lot that has to happen between now and the end of Spring Training, but Mitch Harris has recently moved one step closer to a return to the St. Louis Cardinals roster.
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As pitchers and catchers reported for Spring Training last week, Harris was only allowed to continue his workouts at Roger Dean Stadium independent of the team. But on Saturday, he was officially added to the big league camp roster.
“Hopefully, will stay here as long as possible,” said Harris. “More importantly, it’s just nice to be healthy again.”
The right-hander had surgery on his elbow last June, using an alternative procedure to Tommy John surgery that has him ahead in the recovery process. Harris has been cleared to throw for some time and has been aggressively pursuing the rehab and training, but it took a strong bullpen over the weekend to help expedite his invitation to big league camp.
“Several people saw and realized ‘hey, you’re a little further along’, so invited me over here,” he explained.
The 31-year old right-hander is still progressing in terms of throwing bullpens on back to back days.
“We’re not quite there yet for recovery purposes,” said Harris. “That’s kind of the bigger issue right now, which is common. Talking with Lance (Lynn), talking with everyone who’s kind of gone through the similar things it’s kind of the first thing that you really have to focus in on, is the recovery piece. Because while we’re throwing–throwing feels fine. There’s no issues there. It’s just the day after soreness–how to treat that, how to come back from that.”
There were no live sessions–or pitching practice on Tuesday, but Harris expects to take the mound for one this week.
“Making good strides,” he said. “Take our time with that process and hopefully, within a few weeks, get to where we really push it to say, alright we’re going to throw with full intensity and then come back the next day and throw again. We’ll see how it reacts, but again, that’s kind of the main thing now–how I recover.”
Harris appeared in 26 games for the Cardinals in 2015.
photo credit: STLBaseballWeekly.com
