This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Carlos Sanchez, a 20-year-old Reds prospect just promoted to High-A a little over a month ago, dug into the batters box against Alex Cobb, 17 years his senior. Anthony Stephan, a Reds pick from last year’s MLB Draft, edged off first base with hopes of adding to his stolen-base numbers against a 37-year-old pitcher with hip issues. Cobb caught the baserunner out of the corner of his eye, turned his focus to his hitter, then turned to first and whirled on his left foot as he fired to West Michigan first baseman Andrew Jenkins. The move caught Stephan, who grimaced on his way back to the Dayton dugout like he had just been fooled.
It might have been called a balk in the big leagues, Cobb said later, but as a veteran Major Leaguer making a rehab start from a hip injury, he might have gotten some leeway. A few pitches later, Cobb fanned Sanchez on a slider, finishing a scoreless first inning on his way to two innings with an unearned run on two hits, a walk and two strikeouts.
The pickoff probably felt better mentally than physically. But then, Cobb pitching at this point is a matter of pain management. He looks less labored now after five rehab starts, with another expected this weekend, but to call them free and easy would be optimistic. He has had injections in both of his hips this year, more than he wishes to count.
“Where I'm at, I'm going to have pain,” Cobb said last week. “It's just going to be dealing with it and seeing if you can do it effectively. I don't know at what point that mindset switched, but at a certain point I was like, 'OK, I'm not going to be pain-free, and I'm going to have to battle through pain.' The mindset is just see how it is tomorrow, see what you can do tomorrow.”
The Tigers signed Cobb last December to a one-year, $15 million contract, having liked what they saw from him in Cleveland last fall in a handful of outings following left hip surgery. But hopes of seeing that in Detroit took a hit when he reported to Spring Training dealing with right hip inflammation. He opened the season on the injured list, began a rehab assignment at the end of May, but clearly didn’t look right. He paused again for more treatment, including the other hip.
Several veteran pitchers signed one-year contracts for similar salaries last winter with mixed results, including former Tigers Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, and new Tiger Charlie Morton. But while Cobb’s deal has looked like a sunk cost for a while, it is not for lack of effort from the pitcher sinking all his willpower into making it back, well after many pitchers might have shut it down.
Why do it? Cobb has a list of reasons to put himself through this.
“Obviously I had really high expectations for me going into the season, so first and foremost, you have a responsibility to try to fulfill that as much as possible,” Cobb said. “And then as the diagnoses [have] come in and the pain sets in and you realize the challenges that are in front of you, I think realizing where you are at in your career and the possibility of things being over, to think about never stepping on a big league mound again, I think it hits you pretty hard and gives you a motivation to want to be able to have that feeling again, just competing amongst the best. Once you're done, you're done; your childhood dream is over. And I don't want to have that feeling.
“I think that the most important [reason] is I've never been on a team with this type of potential. I've never been on a first-place [team] at the Trade Deadline, and obviously we have a real chance to do something really special. If we were the last team standing and we got a nice little trophy and a ring, I'd want to stare at that ring and feel like I did everything I could to contribute, even if it's just a little bit. I'd feel a lot more pride in that if I could stare at that ring and know that, even if it wasn't the expectations that I had for my season, knowing that I contributed some sort of way. I think all those kinds of thoughts go into the motivation to keep going and giving it a try. I've been very thankful that the Tigers have been understanding on that and giving me the opportunities.”