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Boston Red Sox veteran pitcher Liam Hendriks still intends to pitch this season despite being sidelined since late May with a right hip injury.
After Hendriks tried to ramp back up in July, the issue returned and a second opinion revealed a strained abdominal side wall. Speaking to reporters on Monday, he shared the hilarious analogy his doctor used.
“I saw a different guy and he was like, ‘You’ve got the body of a gorilla but you’ve got the hips of a cheerleader,’” he told Chris Cotillo of MassLive. “I didn’t like that euphemism as much. I like, ‘Your body is a brick shit-house and your door is made out of a sheet.’”
Hendriks made 14 appearances this season before his injury, all out of the bullpen. In that time, he had a 6.59 ERA with seven walks in 13.2 innings. But it may be unfair to bury the 36-year-old veteran based on his rough start to the season, considering he missed all of 2024 recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora's comment was a ‘slip of the tongue'
Hendriks' insistence that he wants to pitch this year comes a day after Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters he did not expect the righty to suit up in 2025.
The pitcher said he was surprised by the comment, but the two later cleared the air.
“That was surprising. That kind of shook me a little bit,” Hendriks said. “I was like, ‘OK, let me read this thing.’ That was frustrating. It was like, ‘Have they not told me anything that’s going on? Am I out of the loop? What’s going on?’ Everyone I’ve spoken to about this has said, ‘No, we’re pushing to get you back this year.’ You hear that and you’re like, ‘Are they just lying to my face to appease me?’ Which is not the case. It was just a slip of the tongue, unfortunately. It was definitely not a good thing for me to hear. But we hashed it out and we’re all good.
“It’s way too early to say I won’t pitch this year,” he said. “If everything goes well, I will definitely pitch this year as long we keep moving in that direction. I spoke to A.C. about it and it was just a slip of the tongue. He apologized and we’re moving on.”
