{"id":44554,"date":"2017-04-06T20:09:03","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T00:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44554"},"modified":"2020-07-31T20:09:12","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T00:09:12","slug":"maybe-fourth-time-will-be-a-charm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44554","title":{"rendered":"Maybe fourth time will be a charm"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I don\u2019t pay nearly as much attention to baseball as I once did, despite that we\u2019re living in kind of the era of the immediate, where tweets, alerts, push notifications and other means of instant communication exist to stay on top of things very easily if one really wanted to, like baseball news.\u00a0 Often times, I miss out on Braves news much less any news around baseball, because I simply am not that deeply involved like I once did, and everything that happened in the baseball landscape was something I wanted to know.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, among the things that I regularly Googled and checked on from time to time, was one of the pitchers that I really, really enjoyed watching and was a fan of: Jonny Venters<\/strong>.\u00a0 Long story short, he was once an unhittable relief pitcher on the Braves, utilizing a left-handed power sinker from another planet, and even achieved All-Star status for his immense talent.\u00a0 But the injury bug struck, and he underwent the dreaded Tommy John elbow surgery, and eventually he was released by the Braves.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t matter where he went, I knew that I was going to root for Jonny, and so I always kind of kept an ear to the ground even when he was signed by the Rays, fully knowing that it was going to be some time before he was cleared to pitch again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last summer, things looked really optimistic, and Jonny Venters made his way into the minor leagues to work his way back up.\u00a0 Personally, I was stoked to see him taking the mound again, and I grew excited at the prospect of him getting back into game shape, and then getting called up by the Rays, who would unleash the power sinker from the left side onto the mostly unsuspecting American League.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, five games into his rehabilitation assignment, something went wrong, and Jonny Venters tore his UCL, for the fourth time.\u00a0 He was immediately shut down again, and another season-ending surgery was likely.\u00a0 By this point, Venters had already underwent Tommy John surgery three times, and all signs pointed towards the end of his career, as nobody<\/em> in baseball had ever gone under the knife four times, much less made their way back.<\/span><\/p>\n

It made me sad to think that Venters\u2019 career could be over, but it would be understandable given the circumstances.\u00a0 But I had hoped that he would solder forward and try once again, because MLB is a better place with Jonny Venters churning outs, regardless of whom he plays for.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just recently, I discovered that not only is Venters not giving up, the Rays have decided to extend more faith into one day acquiring his recovered services, by signing him to another contract, fully knowing that he won\u2019t really be pitching any time soon.\u00a0 Sure, it\u2019s a minor league deal, and those always have a high chance of ending up being cut on a moment\u2019s notice, but it\u2019s nice to know that someone out there still has faith that things will improve, he\u2019ll recover, and he might not be the same 97 mph power pitcher he once was, but that sinker could play in any era of baseball.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently, he found a way to recover and rehabilitate without the need of a fourth Tommy John, so who knows how this is going to unfold, but for what it\u2019s worth, I\u2019m ecstatic to see that Jonny Venters\u2019 career is not over, and the chance that I\u2019ll get to see him take the hill once again still lives.\u00a0 This is easily going to be one of the key things that I\u2019ll have my eye on as the season progresses, and hopefully we\u2019ll see him back in the Majors sooner rather than later.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t pay nearly as much attention to baseball as I once did, despite that we\u2019re living in kind of the era of the immediate, where tweets, alerts, push notifications and other means of instant communication exist to stay on top of things very easily if one really wanted to, like baseball news.\u00a0 Often times, … Continue reading Maybe fourth time will be a charm<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,64],"class_list":["post-44554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-minor-leagues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44556,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44554\/revisions\/44556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}