Barrett determined to make full recovery from "traumatic" injury

The road to recovery from Tommy John surgery is long and lonely, and tests the mind just as much as it tests the reconstructed elbow of a pitcher. Aaron Barrett was far down that road in late July, a full 11 months removed from his surgery and fully confident he'd be ready to pitch in a big league game for the Nationals after only one more month of rehab.

Barrett was standing on a mound on one of the practice fields in Viera, Fla., on July 22, 10 pitches into a scheduled 20-pitch simulated game. His arm "felt great," he said. "It was the best I've felt in a long process."

And then came pitch No. 11, and all of a sudden Barrett's world was turned upside-down again. The pitch was supposed to be a fastball away.

"And as I'm accelerating, it just snaps," the right-hander said.

The ball, Barrett thinks, went somewhere "in the air to the right a little." He wasn't paying much attention at that point, because he had dropped to his knees, fully grasping the seriousness of what had just happened.

"Oh, yeah, I knew it didn't have anything to do with my ligament," he said. "It was something completely different. I had never broken a bone before, but I knew something was wrong. I didn't have anything leading up to it, as far as any indication anything like that would happen. Just total freak thing."

Barrett described the scene as "pretty traumatic" and added "there may or may not have been a few guys vomiting on the side as it happened, but we don't have to get into that."

What goes through a ballplayer's mind in those first few seconds after he realizes he broke his elbow throwing a pitch?

"I was so close," Barrett said, referring to the end of his Tommy John recovery. "I was a week away from going on my rehab assignment. So there was a finish line, you know what I mean? And I watched the guys. I watched the game every night. And seeing how well everyone's doing, you want to get back and help the team. And you kind of see that finish line, and when it all comes to a halt like that, first I questioned why.

"But as things kind of calmed down, I kind of understood everything happens for a reason, as hard as that is to grasp or believe. But I knew everything was going to be OK. It was definitely traumatizing, man. It's like someone hit me in the gut a million times. It sucks. It still does. But at the same time, I literally have a bionic arm now, and I'm literally going to come back stronger than ever."

Indeed, Barrett has some metal holding his elbow together now. He didn't want to go into specifics except to describe it as "some serious hardware in there."

"I did set off the metal detector," he said. "I should be sponsored by Black & Decker, maybe."

Exactly five weeks removed from suffering the fracture, Barrett was back at Nationals Park, getting checked out by doctors, catching up with teammates and (by sheer fortune of good timing) getting to pose with everyone else for the club's annual team photo.

His right arm looks perfectly normal to the untrained eye. He isn't wearing a cast. He can shake hands with others and bend his arm into most positions. All bruising has long since disappeared.

"They call me 'The Healer' down in Florida, because it's just amazing how fast some of this stuff has healed," he said. "I'm pretty blessed to be able to have that, I guess you could say, gift to be able to heal that quickly. I'm hoping to continue that process."

Barrett most certainly plans to continue it. These kinds of traumatic injuries, especially when piled on top of a major surgery like he had last year, could end some careers. Barrett refuses to think in those terms.

He doesn't have an exact timeline for a full recovery, but he and doctors fully expect it to happen.

"All in all, you've just got to stay positive," he said. "There's really no other way to look at it. That's the kind of person I am. Literally I feel like I'm going to come back stronger than ever."