Kjerstad: "I'm feeling like my old self again"

Heston Kjerstad doesn't know the reasons why he contracted myocarditis, a condition that causes inflammation in the heart and halts the career of a young baseball player. It could have been related to COVID-19. It could have been something else. What's indisputable is how it wrecked his professional life and changed him personally.

Maybe for the better in the long run.

Kjerstad certainly believes so, and he carries that positive attitude into his daily workouts at the Orioles' fall instructional league camp in Sarasota, Fla., where he's back in good health and ramping up his activities. Convinced that, finally, he can go through a normal spring training and make his debut with an affiliate two years after the Orioles drafted him second overall.

"I'm feeling really good at this point," Kjerstad said this morning in a Zoom call with local media, his first interview since the diagnosis. "I went through all the steps of progressing through my rehab and getting back to full strength and hitting. Currently about to hit some live (pitching) end of this week, and I'm feeling good, I'm feeling like my old self again, swinging it well.

"After a full offseason and getting a lot of reps in and getting back in the weight room, I'll be ready to get after it come spring training."

With no more false starts.

Kjerstad, 22, didn't make it to camp as a non-roster invitee this spring, shut down again due to his condition. He was supposed to get in shape at the Bowie site, but needed more rest and the measured steps that eventually led him into the batting cage and a fall instructional roster of 50 players.

Nineteen are ranked by MLBPipeline.com among the organization's top 30 prospects, including Kjerstad at No. 7. He just needs to play.

What he's always wanted to do.

"It hasn't been fun, honestly," he said. "It's not anything you ever envision happening along your plan and journey to your goals you have set, but it's things you've just got to face, you've got to take head-on.

"We all face obstacles here and there through our careers and this happens to be one of mine. Every day I just take it one day at a time and it was a challenge getting through it for sure, and now that we're on the other side, I'm really happy to have it in the past and ready to move forward."

The Orioles selected Kjerstad out of the University of Arkansas, where he batted .343/.421/.590 with 34 doubles, 37 home runs and 129 RBIs over three seasons. They gave him a $5.2 million bonus, below the $7.8 million slot, praised him as the best left-handed hitter in the country and assumed that he'd be patrolling right field at Camden Yards in a few years.

No one expected life to throw him such a nasty curve.

"I had to see a lot of doctors," he said. "It wasn't fun mentally. It was pretty taxing just because I'm young, I never thought of me being sidelined for something of that nature. But the Orioles helped me get to see plenty of great doctors, they gave me a great plan to follow, and I followed those steps and was able to make it through and saw the light at the end of the tunnel the whole time. Now we finally made it through all those steps and I'm back here playing and feeling great.

"There was obviously a little doubt on how I'd come back. There was never 'if' I would come back. The doctors were reassuring: 'This is short term and we're going to get you back on the field, it's just a matter of when, but through this time let's focus on your health and we're going to get you healthy and after that you'll focus on how you play baseball.'

"Anytime you go through injuries or setbacks, it's natural as a human to wonder, 'Am I going to be the same, how will I be?' But honestly I think I'm going to be better for it. Mentally, I went through a lot through all this and I think it's going to give me a little bit of an edge in my game. I have a different perspective on everything now and more appreciation for playing the game and being healthy and just being able to do what I love every day."

Kjerstad said he felt fine after the draft and again earlier this year and just followed the orders given by doctors who explained that he had inflammation in his heart and need to shut down. He tried to fill his days by being productive, finding other ways to enhance his game, whether on the mental side or just viewing as much baseball as he could. Gathering his thoughts and seeking out lessons that would somehow make sense of his predicament.

There are no intrasquad games at the fall camp, but Kjerstad has grown accustomed to the conditioning drills and fine-tuning that define the days spent at the Ed Smith complex.

"I spent a lot of time with other guys who were injured or coming back from injuries just like I was," he said. "It's kind of the bonding experience because you're at low points with some other guys and able to talk about it with them. You get to know each other and create a bond that's really going to help us through our careers have a good team comradery. And also being around other guys who were coming in, getting drafted, or other guys who were just coming through who were healthy. They're always there, they understand they'll probably be at a low point in their career and they're there for you because they're going to want you there for them when they're in your shoes."

Kjerstad's story has circulated through the organization over time.

"It's good getting to see him back," said infielder Jordan Westburg, the 30th overall pick in 2020 out of Mississippi State University. "I know he's been itching to get with us all and get back and do baseball activities, so it's really cool to see a smile on his face every day.

"He's been really engaging, which has been great to see. I know he's getting after it and we all just hope that he stays healthy so he can make a big impact come 2022."

"I think the best thing about Heston and being around him is he's got such a positive attitude all the time," said pitcher Carter Baumler, a fifth-round pick in 2020. "For someone going through a struggle like him and maintaining such a good attitude around the whole thing, it's pretty cool to see and it definitely sheds on everybody else. He's a really positive dude, full of energy, full of laughter, and it's a really good thing to be around."

Baumler also is waiting to make his professional debut after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

"I finished my whole throwing program and I'm cleared to have a pretty normal offseason," he said. "There's still like a couple things that we're still kind of working out, like a throwing program going into next year and stuff like that, but for the most part I'm pretty much a full-go, getting ready for 2022.

"I haven't thrown to a hitter yet. I completed my whole mound progression up until, my last mound would have been pretty much just a normal bullpen and that's pretty much what I worked up to, and right now the goal is just having a normal throwing program until spring training 2022."

Few players can relate exactly to what Kjerstad has endured. This isn't a hamstring, elbow or shoulder. This isn't a surgical procedure, traditional rehab and return.

Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez, a former Orioles farmhand, missed the 2020 season with myocarditis. He appeared in 32 games this season, won 13 and struck out 185 batters in 157 2/3 innings.

"It's good to see that there's someone else that's a high-level athlete like Eduardo to go back to his normal self and have an amazing year like he had this year with the Red Sox," Kjerstad said. "It's good to see. It gives you a little bit more hope and confidence. The doctors these days, they're really good, they can do a lot to help you get healthy, and they obviously did it with Eduardo, and took the same steps and I'm back on the field."

Kjerstad leaned on his family for support, a group that he says has always been there for him in good and bad times. The successes in high school and college, when scouts flocked to his games. The night of the draft. The day that he received a diagnosis that floored him.

That's when they had to remind him "how great it will be when I'm healthy again," he said.

"How you need to focus on yourself and just get healthy and we'll worry about baseball once you get to that point, and now we're here. My family's totally still with me and just pushing me to be the best person and baseball player that I can be."

A different person, he believes, since his illness. And in a good way.

"Definitely through that journey of going through all that over the past year, it changes you for sure, and I would say it changed me for the better, especially mentally," Kjerstad said. "It sharpened my mind. It's really a humbling experience to go through something like that at a young age, especially at the point in the career that I was at. I was ready to jump in the minor leagues and work my way up to the big leagues as soon as I could and now I had to put a pause on that.

"It was a challenge, but now I'm back where I wanted to be."

Kjerstad said he tried to find some new hobbies, but his mind and passion kept him tethered to the Orioles. No matter the distance between them.

"I couldn't find anything that stuck too much," he said, "just because the one thing I wanted to do was play baseball and I couldn't do it, so in the back of my mind it was, that's the true thing I wanted and nothing else really satisfied that."

The games will come later. Kjerstad is just happy to be swinging a bat again. Allowed to do what he loves and has always come naturally. Why he was denied for so long may remain a mystery.

"It's possible that it's COVID, but it's nothing they can for sure say that it was 100 percent that," he said. "But it's something you get through, and once it's gone, you don't have to worry about it anymore."