Realmuto upbeat about recovery: 'I'll be at 100%'
Paul Casella
@paul_casellaMLBPHILADELPHIA -- J.T. Realmuto walked out of surgery last Wednesday and immediately got back to work.
Of course, Realmuto wasn¡¯t doing anything physical -- he won't be ready to rejoin the Phillies' active roster for approximately a month following his right knee meniscectomy. But he was eager for the club to get back from last week's road trip so that he could jump back into helping catchers Garrett Stubbs and Rafael March¨¢n -- and the entire pitching staff -- any way possible.
"Now that I'm here, I want to be able to help as much as I can," Realmuto said in the Phillies' clubhouse prior to the team¡¯s game Tuesday night against the Padres. "So I'm still going to do my same reports, still do my same game-planning, and then have conversations with Marchy and Stubbs and [pitching coach Caleb Cotham].
¡°They obviously do a great job on their own, but it's just the more conversations we have, the better."
Nearly a week removed from surgery, Realmuto said everything has gone to plan so far -- and he would know better than anyone. The procedure he underwent last week in Philadelphia was the exact same as the one he had in the final days of the 2019 season.
Both surgeries were a cleanup procedure in which doctors cut out a small portion of the meniscus where the tear occurred. Since it's a removal instead of a repair, the timetable for a return is much shorter -- and there should be no long-term effects.
"I'll be at 100%," Realmuto said. "I had this exact same procedure in 2019. And from the day I had that procedure, I didn't feel it again. So I expect this one to be the same to where once I get back on my feet, I shouldn't feel pain in that area again."
To be clear, Realmuto's latest meniscus injury had nothing to do with the previous procedure. It happened when Realmuto slipped rounding second base on a triple in the Phillies' May 4 game against the Giants. Similarly, the 2019 issue happened when Realmuto was running to first base in a game in Cleveland.
In other words, neither of these procedures were a result of wear and tear for the game's most durable catcher over the past decade.
In fact, Realmuto initially planned to play through this knee injury. He was in the lineup each of the next two games, but eventually missed three straight games from May 12-14 when the pain flared up again.
It was during that stretch that he underwent imaging that revealed the tear -- and the need for surgery ... at some point.
"I was hoping, initially, that I was going to be able to make it to the end of the season,¡± Realmuto said. ¡°Then after a week, I was like, 'Maybe I can make it to the All-Star break.' Then it just kept getting a little worse and worse."
It got to the point that the pain forced Realmuto to alter the way he was catching. While he typically has his left knee down to receive, he started instead catching with his right knee down because that alleviated some of the pain.
The silver lining in all of this is the timing of the surgery couldn't be better. If Realmuto is ready four weeks from his surgery date -- as both he and the Phillies expect -- that would fall on the Wednesday before the All-Star break.
Best-case scenario, he gets some game action during the club's final five games of the first half and then gets some built-in rest during the break. Worst-case scenario, he's ready for the first game of the second half on July 19 -- five weeks and two days after surgery.
¡°For me, I'd rather be able to play those few games before the break,¡± Realmuto said. ¡°But if my body's not feeling right, I'm not going to push it."
Neither are the Phillies.
After all, the whole benefit to getting this done now is to have Realmuto fully healthy for another postseason run. The Phillies (48-24) entered Tuesday with an eight-game lead over the Braves in the National League East and a four-game edge over the Dodgers for the best record in the NL.
"A lot of the thought into it was I don't want to be feeling this in September and October," Realmuto said. "We wanted to get it taken care of now so it wasn't happening later in the season."
Another benefit is that Trea Turner returned just in time to help fill some of the void during Realmuto¡¯s absence.
¡°I was joking with Trea when I first got put on the IL that I was going to come back before him just because he'd been out for so long,¡± Realmuto said. ¡°But he made it back before me, so he made fun of me yesterday.¡±