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Three-and-a-half weeks later, Paul DeJong’s face still doesn’t look completely normal. His nose is pushed toward the right. The area around his left eye is still slightly swollen. The scars from the surgery he underwent to repair the broken nose, the broken orbital bone and broken orbital floor are still visible. Baseball is still months away, in all likelihood.
DeJong was back at Nationals Park this week, though, for the first time since getting struck in the face by a fastball April 15 in Pittsburgh. And that seemingly simple act, something the infielder used to take for granted, meant everything to him.
“That’s what I was missing the most, just the camaraderie of the daily process that we go through every day,” he said. “So I’m happy to be able to be cleared to do some of my own process now, and kind of gain some momentum that way.”
In the immediate aftermath of his harrowing injury, DeJong wasn’t allowed to do much at all. Doctors had to wait more than a week before they could operate, giving time for some of the swelling to go down. Before and after that procedure, he was stuck at home, aided by his grandfather, who drove up from Florida to live with him while he recovered.
DeJong and his grandfather, Steve Whipple, watched movies together every night. Whipple got DeJong into classic Clint Eastwood movies like “Dirty Harry” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” DeJong got Whipple into more recent comedies like “The Hangover” and “Beerfest.”
“This is the most we’ve ever spent together like this,” the 31-year-old said.
He was finally cleared to drive on his own this week, though, so now he’s ready to start getting back to something resembling normal life. And that includes as much time at the ballpark as he’s allowed.
DeJong isn’t allowed to do much yet. He can’t lift weights, but he can mimic the movements. He can’t run, but he can ride a stationary bike. He can’t take the field or do anything baseball-related yet.
“It’s too much of a risk to have anything, possibly any impact to my face,” he said. “So we’re going to take it week-by-week and just see how I respond physically to an increasing workload.”
What does DeJong remember about the Mitch Keller fastball that struck him in the left side of the face in the top of the sixth inning that night at PNC Park?
“I remember just a ringing in my ear. Like, ‘Wow, this really just happened, huh?’” he said. “I remember throwing my helmet and just kind of waiting for them to come get me. But honestly, I wasn’t in that much pain, which is amazing. I never had a concussion. Just one of those freak plays. But I’m thankful it wasn’t worse.”
DeJong is targeting July for his full return to the Nationals, but he knows it’s not worth trying to map that all out right now. There are too many steps to take between now and then.
The biggest hurdle will come when he steps into the batter’s box for the first time to face a live pitcher. There’s no manual that says how a player coming back from this type of injury should prepare for the situation. He plans to wear a “C-flap” on his batting helmet, offering further protection to the exposed left side of his face. But the real challenge is mental, not physical.
“There’s a fine line what we can, what we want to do,” manager Davey Martinez said. “We’ll take baby steps with him, see how he’s doing. But it’s going to be a lot of cage work with him before we really get him on the field and see what happens with a ball thrown.”
DeJong tries not to think too much about the psychological aspect of this. He tries to stay focused on the physical steps he needs to take, hoping baseball instincts will eventually take over.
“I’m interested to see how I feel, especially once there’s some close calls, because it’s going to happen,” he said. “I know it is. It’s just baseball. But just to go out there and compete again, I think getting my feet under me and kind of focusing on playing the game physically, getting my body in shape, will help me kind of take my mind off the what-ifs, or any sort of flashbacks.
“But this is part of being an athlete and being ‘warriors.’ I’ve had a lot of injuries playing this game, and you always come back and eventually you get to a normalcy point. So I’m confident that will return.”
