JUPITER, Fla. — When Cardinals ace Sonny Gray stepped off the rubber between pitches and had a verbal back and forth with pitching coach Dusty Blake on the mound on Monday, it wasn’t cause for alarm. It wasn’t because they needed to shut down the throwing session. The hand gesturing and demonstrative movements were completely in the context of pitching.
For Gray, those exchanges were very much welcomed.
One week after a hamstring injury forced Gray to leave his spring training start flanked by his manager Oliver Marmol, head athletic trainer Adam Olsen and Blake, the right-hander stood on the mound in his full uniform in the bullpen just outside the clubhouse at the Cardinals spring training facility and fired pitches without pain.
“I guess the best thing you can say is about five or six pitches in, you’re talking with Dusty about pitching,” Gray said. “It’s not like you throw a pitch: ‘How did that feel? How did that feel?’ You throw a pitch and then you talk about the pitch and talk about the execution of the pitch and how the pitch felt out of your hand.”
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Gray, 34, appreciated the return to normalcy provided by a 20-pitch bullpen session that took place prior to the Cardinals’ Grapefruit League game against the Washington Nationals. He threw the last pitch of his session at 92 mph.
After Gray threw off the mound for the first time since his hamstring strain, he expressed optimism about his ability to resume his throwing program and quickly return to a standard spring training progression. He didn’t offer a long-range timetable, but he stated more than once that he was not “starting from zero” and didn’t see a complete restart as necessary.
Gray, who signed a three-year free-agent contract with the Cardinals this winter worth a guaranteed $75 million, suffered a right hamstring strain in the second inning of his Grapefruit League start against the Nationals in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He grabbed the back of his leg after his follow-through on the second pitch of his at-bat against Nick Senzel. Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras immediately signaled to the coaching and training staffs on the bench. After a brief conference on the mound, Gray exited the game.
The previous week, the Cardinals had announced Gray as their opening day starting pitcher against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Dodger Stadium.
Following an MRI last Monday, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak described Gray’s strain as “mild” one day later. However, Mozeliak did not offer a definitive timetable for Gray’s recovery and acknowledged the injury placed the opening day start in doubt.
A right-handed pitcher, Gray drives off his right leg in his pitching delivery. His hamstring is an essential part of maintaining his pitching mechanics.
Gray resumed activity a couple of days after the injury, including weight room workouts, conditioning and playing catch.
Monday’s bullpen session, which did not include hitters in the batter’s box, marked the first set of what Gray described as physical and mental hurdles.
Gray offered an analogy to put the mental hurdle in context.
“You’re a kid and you’re riding your bike,” Gray said. “And you fall off the bike. (It’s like) getting back on the bike. You got to get back on the bike. I think that’s the thing — mentally getting to a point where you’re like, ‘I just got to get back on the bike.’”
The premier signing of the Cardinals’ offseason, Gray finished second in AL Cy Young Award voting last season. He went 8-8 with a 2.79 ERA, nine strikeouts per nine innings, a 3.33-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a 1.15 WHIP in 32 starts (184 innings) with the Minnesota Twins in 2023.
His 2.83 FIP (fielder independent pitching) and 0.4 home runs allowed per nine innings pitched both led the majors. He logged the second-best ERA among qualified AL pitchers, the third-best in the majors.
“If you were just walking in and didn’t know anything,” Marmol said of Gray’s bullpen session, “you would’ve thought he was throwing a regular side, which is encouraging.”
Because Gray had only built up to two innings in his last start, it’s feasible he could pick up his build up where he left off. Though an appearance in an exhibition game remains at least a few steps away.
Marmol didn’t immediately give a timeline for Gray’s next step. Instead, Marmol said the progression depended upon how Gray’s body responded on Tuesday, the day after his session.
“I fully expect to recover fine tomorrow,” Gray said. “Next for me is a bullpen, a longer bullpen.”
Gray expected to throw his next bullpen session on either Wednesday or Thursday. He expressed optimism about resuming a typical spring training build up. He asserted that the previous three to four days leading into his bullpen sessions were not atypical from his normal schedule.
“I’m not starting from zero, so it’s not like my first bullpen of the winter or something like that,” Gray said. “I didn’t play catch for two days. It’s not like I sat there for two weeks and couldn’t throw or couldn’t move or anything.”
Gray stopped short of putting the opening day start back on the table. Though he didn’t deny that getting back on track to potentially pitch in the season opener might serve as motivation.
He chose his words cautiously and made sure not to get too far ahead of himself. The bullpen session was a benchmark, but he knows there will be others he must reach.
“The next one that I’m looking at is just the next bullpen for now,” Gray said. “That one will tell us a lot more of where we’re at in everything. We’ll be fine; I fully, fully expect that. But that’s kind of where I’m at. Then once we get through that, I think realistically we could have an idea of what to expect.
“All in all, it’s been a good week. That’s all I can really look at right now.”