Hendriks fired up in first Red Sox action, even if it's only spring

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- There will be plenty of time for Liam Hendriks to try to win the closing job he covets with the Red Sox.

But Wednesday wasn’t about that.

Instead, it was all about the joy of competing again for a man who has been deprived of the game he loves for the better part of the last three seasons.

The fire was back for Hendriks in his first Grapefruit League appearance for the Red Sox, as evidenced when he shouted after striking out Taylor Walls on an 86 mph cutter and then pumped his fist as if it was the final out of a game at Fenway Park against the Yankees (rather than an eventual 8-2 spring loss to the Rays).

“You come across as kind of a [jerk] when you do it in the fourth inning of a Spring Training game,” quipped Hendriks. “But it's nice to get that going, as far as just the mentality of having it in you and doing it that way.”

Hendriks has always been full of emotions on the mound, not shy about showing a stadium full of people and both dugouts what he is feeling at every moment.

He might be even more demonstrative in his comeback. Hendriks missed Spring Training and the first two months of the 2023 season while facing the most adversity of his life -- a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Hendriks, with the White Sox at the time, surprised many people when he made it back to the mound by May 29 of that season. But after just five appearances, he blew out his right elbow and needed Tommy John surgery.

The Red Sox signed him to a two-year contract while Spring Training was already underway last year, knowing that most of the payoff would come in Year Two.

Though Hendriks tried valiantly to make an impact on the ’24 Red Sox, his progress was stunted due to elbow inflammation during a Minor League rehab assignment and then scrapped entirely when the club fell out of realistic contention for a postseason spot.

But Hendriks is now very much back, as indicated by his fastball topping out at 96 mph against the Rays.

“My first [live batting practice], I was 91 or 92 [mph],” said Hendriks. “Second one was 92 to 94. Last one was 91 to 93. Today was 93 to 96. It’s trending in the right direction, which is nice, but it’s also Spring Training, and I do a lot better when there's repercussions on the line, when there’s another team and an umpire.”

Hendriks threw 20 pitches on Wednesday, 12 of them strikes. The only hit he gave up to Curtis Mead, his Australian countryman.

“Clean inning and the only hit I gave up was to the stupid Australian,” laughed Hendriks.

While few players joke around outside the lines more than Hendriks, he is the polar opposite when he gets on that mound.

And he will be going full speed ahead for the next month in trying to prove to the Red Sox he should be the one who gets the ball in the ninth inning when the team is ahead. Veteran lefty Aroldis Chapman and emerging righty Justin Slaten are likely the others in the competition.

“I just want to be given an opportunity,” Hendriks said. “If I win the job, I win the job. If I don't win the job, I don't win the job. It's not going to change how I go about pitching. It's not going to change my mentality towards anything. But fist bumping in the seventh, it’s kind of like, ‘This guy is a knob.’ You fist bump at the end of a game, it’s more electric.

“I just want to be wherever I can be to help this team win. We’ve got a great team. And if we flitter around a little bit, it is what it is, and we'll take it by ear. But I plan on winning that job.”

And if he does, his full range of emotions will be on display for each save or blown save.

“It's one of those things where it's like, the more I do that, the more I end up getting into myself, and that's when I can find what I do best,” Hendriks said. “So same thing with cussing, yelling at myself after a bad pitch, or a pitch that I miss location on, or a pitch that was just non-competitive. It's the same way.”