Once a middle-of-the-road starting pitcher, Brandon Morrow revived his career as a dominant relief pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers during their 2017 run to the World Series. Morrow turned that into a two-year, $21 million contract with the Chicago Cubs.
He was primed to be their closer but only appeared in 35 games for Chicago. Morrow dealt with back, biceps and elbow trouble. Elbow surgery and a subsequent setback wound up preventing Morrow from pitching in 2019, and the Cubs declined their option for last year.
Morrow re-signed to a Minor League contract for the 2020 and deemed healthy going into Spring Training but suffered a chest strain and one week later a partially torn calf muscle early into camp.
The Cubs released him last July, and Morrow took the rest of the year off. Though, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman reached out to express interest in a reunion.
“I had an offer very early to come back, so I put my eye on it and started working out about October 1,” Morrow said. “Really getting after it and tried to do all I could. I hope it pays off.”
Once Morrow decided he would effectively shut himself down last year, he and his family left their Scottsdale home for the mountains. “It was great for obviously my body, but mind as well. Trying to rehab when things aren’t working out is really rough,” Morrow said.
“To go in every day and you still feel the same terrible feeling. After I had the first debridement at the back of my elbow, I thought that was going to be it. Coming back in ’19, doing all the rehab to get back to facing hitters and feeling decent up until I did face hitters, but then having the same exact thing I did the year before and trying to find new solutions to that, whether it be cortisone injections or hydrodissection, it’s tough.
“Coming back in 2020 in spring, I was feeling OK but it hadn’t been all that much time since the nerve decompression surgery, so I was still rehabbing and feeling tentative, definitely from that. I think with everything that went down last year, it was definitely in my best interest to take all that time off.”
Morrow now feels healthy and similar to how he did in spring of 2017. “I started throwing the first of December, so I was able to give myself a long time to build up my arm strength,” he said. “I probably had nine or 10 bullpens coming into Spring Training; very gradual buildup with those. I felt pretty good.”
Morrow willing to take on any role
Just like in 2017, Morrow is with the Dodgers on a Minor League contract. With no guarantees in sight, the right-hander is willing to fill any role asked of him.
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