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| Padres lineup. (Getty Images) |
At 3:59 p.m., Chase Headley went over 357.
And the comeback was under way in earnest.
Late afternoon, hitting for the first time since fracturing the tip of his left thumb three weeks ago ... ka-boom. Batting right-handed, Headley belted a baseball over the left-field fence at Petco Park, right over the 357-foot sign.
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Though it was only batting practice and only one of several swings, hey. You sit for three weeks with a fractured tip of your left thumb, you take what you can get.
“I woke up excited this morning,” Headley said following his first swings on the field since his mid-March injury. “I had a pretty good feeling everything was going to feel good. But you never know until you’re out there.”
Now it’s the Padres who are excited. Off to a rough 2-5 start, you bet they can’t wait until Headley, who led the National League in RBI last year, can join their lineup. Headley, 28, hit .286 with 31 home runs and 115 RBI in 2012.
"Chase is very encouraged and, medically, we’re encouraged as well,” manager Bud Black said. “He’s swinging well. He swung from both sides of the plate.”
Headley and the Padres will see how things go for the next couple of days. Then, likely, he will depart to the minor leagues for an injury-rehabilitation assignment that is expected to last between four and seven games.
The initial diagnosis was that he would miss four to six weeks. Now, it’s looking like it’ll be closer to the four-, or maybe five-week mark.
“It depends on how I feel,” Headley said. “As a switch-hitter, you’re going to want to get at-bats against both left-handers and right-handers. ...
“I’m not going to come back if I’m not ready to play. Because that won’t help us out or me out.”
For a first few steps, though ... so far, so good.
“I was really happy with my swing and the way it felt,” Headley said. “The most important thing was not having any pain.”
