Dodgers Interview: Edman updates fans on timeline for return

CAMELBACK RANCH, AZ — Tommy Edman is clearly past the scary part of the process of rehabbing his injured ankle, but he knows the finish line is right around the corner. The focus is building back up the right way, and making sure the “utility” part of his game is fully there when he returns.

“It feels good,” Edman said about his rehab. “That was always going to be kind of a stretch just due to the nature of the injury and the timing of the surgery and everything. I’ve been out of the boot for a little over a month now. I was waiting to see how it progressed, and everything’s gone exactly on schedule. We were leaving Opening Day open just in case it happened to feel way better than expected. Everything’s on the expected schedule so far.”

That word he keeps coming back to is “volume,” and you can hear why. It’s one thing to be walking around and doing controlled drills. It’s another thing to stack baseball work day after day and see how the ankle responds. “As I get into more baseball stuff, I still have to work into the adaptation of volume,” he said. “As the volume goes up, swelling increases a little bit. I’ve got to take it slow and let the progress play out the way that was planned all along instead of trying to speed it up.”

In terms of baseball activities, Edman is starting to add pieces back in. “I just started flips. I’ve done two days of flips,” he said. “I’ve been throwing and working a running progression. I’ve been jogging on the gravity treadmill getting up to like 75%. Then I can do more plyo where I’m going more straight up and down, and I’m working into getting more linear motion right now.”

Edman also sounds like someone who knows exactly what “ready” feels like, because he lived the alternative last season. When asked about playing through the ankle issue and what that taught him, he framed it around speed, not pain tolerance. “I’ll have a good feel for what it needs to feel like to be at 100%, especially with that first burst and the acceleration phase,” he said. “We’re really trying to make sure that I feel fully comfortable going zero to 100 as fast as I can before getting out there and playing games.”

The day-to-day approach is basically awareness and discipline, with the rehab work treated like part of the job, not an add-on. “Being really aware of how it feels each day, and not trying to do something more than what I’m ready for yet and having a setback,” he said. “I haven’t had any setbacks yet. I’ve hit every step along the way. It has felt good, and I haven’t had any increase in soreness with each progressive activity. Being smart about it, being diligent about keeping up with my rehab and soft tissue and all that stuff, and making sure it’s bouncing back the way we need it to.”

Even when the conversation circled back to the calendar, Edman kept it rooted in progress markers rather than vibes. “Opening Day was going to be a really aggressive goal,” he said. “Everything is based on past instances with this kind of surgery. I’ve hit every checkpoint along the way in terms of being 12 weeks I’m at this point, 14 weeks I’m trying to get to this point. I feel like I’m on schedule with that, and just kind of see how it goes with each step along the way.”

And for the Dodgers, the whole point is getting back the version of Edman who can move all over the field, not a limited version stuck in one spot. When he talked about what it will take to play second, center, and maybe third again, he went straight to the actions that separate “healthy enough” from “fully back.” “It all comes back to the first step,” he said. “Feeling like I can be explosive off the ball and feel fully comfortable about getting up to top speed. Then also being able to cut at top speed, too, which is kind of the base running aspect of that. It’s all acceleration, change of direction type stuff.”

Like so many injured Dodgers, Edman knows that the team has the luxury not to force his rehab into an arbitrary timeline. And frustrating as it might be for fans to hear, he will be ready when he’s ready and not a moment before.

In the meantime, let’s watch the drama of “Who’s on Second” unfold…

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