DETROIT — Closer Liam Hendriks won’t be available to pitch when the White Sox host the Orioles on June 23, but it will be an important night to him.
The Sox are having a “Pride Night” on that Friday, an event so meaningful to the 33-year-old right-hander that he asked teams if they had one when he was going through free agency before the 2021 season. Hendriks said he didn’t really want to be part of a team that didn’t have one.
The Sox have had a Pride Night since 2018. Hendriks signed a four-year, $54 million deal.
Hendriks recently said to The Athletic that if the Sox didn’t have one, “that would be something that we need to look into ... because I don’t want to go necessarily to a team that doesn’t do it.”
“It’s something I’ve believe in,” he said. “The biggest thing is making sure that hopefully it starts more of a trend of other people willing to do it.”
Hendriks revealed on Wednesday, a day after going on the injured list with a strained forearm flexor, that he has had a torn UCL since 2008. An injury that severe almost always requires major surgery.
An elbow strain often foreshadows more serious problems, such as the need for Tommy John Surgery to repair a torn UCL, but Hendriks said he is “not concerned with it long term at all.”
“You see ‘forearm flexor strain, precursor to a lot of things,’ ’’ Hendriks said. “But there’s been no change in my ligament, and that’s the good thing. That was one of the relieving parts of it.
“I’ve had a tear in my UCL since ‘08. It’s been there, that’s been manageable, I’ve been able to deal with it. But over the course of this year my elbow has been constantly inflamed a little more than usual. It got to the point where it was inflamed, it was a little uncertain, there’s a slight forearm strain in there, so we’re taking care of that. The ligament hasn’t changed, nothing has changed on any other end that way so it’s a mild strain, hopefully get back out there, they say three weeks.”
Hendriks said he’s targeting July 1 to return.
Hendriks, who is from Australia, played his first season of professional ball in the Twins system in 2007. He missed all of 2008, returned in 2009 and made his major league debut with the Twins in 2011. He said he has pitched through pain to varying degrees since then.
“It’s the same with any injury. If you can tolerate it you can pitch,” Hendriks said. “So it’s been one thing I’ve been tolerating, dealing with ever since then.”
Hendriks, the American League Reliever of the Year the last two seasons, has always taken pride in being available, pitching on consecutive days and multiple innings if necessary regardless of discomfort he is feeling. In his last outing against the Rangers Friday, “it was the most pain I’ve been in on the mound in 15 years. But I wasn’t coming out of the game no matter what. You had to rip the ball out of my hands.
“It’s all a pain threshold thing. I know guys that have had a very minute tear that needed surgery. Know guys that have fully torn theirs and pitched for five, six years after it’s been fully torn. It’s a matter of how you deal with everything.”
