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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — Chicago White Sox closer Liam Hendriks, who recently returned to the majors after undergoing treatment for cancer, has no structural damage to his right elbow and is hoping for a minimal stint on the injured list.
Hendriks received a cortisone shot Sunday, the same day he was placed on the 15-day IL with inflammation in his pitching elbow, and will receive a platelet-rich plasma injection at some point before the White Sox leave Los Angeles on Thursday night.
Hendriks, 34, had to get clearance from his oncologist in order to receive the shots because he is still in remission from stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which he was diagnosed with in December.
Hendriks has made five appearances since his return, allowing five baserunners and striking out three batters. However, his fastball was down into the mid-90s, about three ticks from his normal velocity.
He doesn’t believe the elbow inflammation is related to his unusually aggressive ramp-up to return.
“I think the potential of the chemo still being in my system and not kind of letting me recover as well as I would have hoped — I think that has some merit to it,” Hendriks said. “But honestly we won’t really know. It’s unfortunate the way it went about, but hopefully it’s a minimal stint on the IL and we can get back there as soon as I can.”
The pain in Hendriks’ right elbow dates back to early May, right before arriving in Gwinnett, Georgia, to join the organization’s Triple-A affiliate and begin a rehab assignment. He returned to Chicago a couple weeks later, and the pain in his elbow only worsened. Soon after he began pitching in major league games, the pain ratcheted up to a higher level.
“The last three outings,” Hendriks said, “it was constant pain every time I picked up a ball and threw it.”
Hendriks threw a scoreless ninth inning against the Miami Marlins on Friday, securing his second win of the season in the process. During the outing, though, he had to fight off attempts by White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal to visit him on the mound. After it was over, he couldn’t ball his right hand into a fist.
Hendriks has a history of playing through pain — and has spent the past 15 years pitching with a partial tear in his ulnar collateral ligament — but that development scared him enough to inform the White Sox that he was hurt.
After the cortisone shot, Hendriks was able to dry his face with his right hand for the first time in a while. It made him smile. So did learning that his damaged UCL actually looked a little better than it did around this time last year, when he missed close to a month with a flexor strain in his right forearm.
His timeline this year is “wait and see.”
“This year, it’s making sure I get everything handled as far as healthwise,” Hendriks said. “It’s making sure everything is taken care of in the right way. I need to be cognizant of the way my body reacts and feels with everything, just due to the fact I still don’t have the strongest immune system. There’s a lot of other things going on in my body.”