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As many baseball fans will remember, Los Angeles Angels outfielder Taylor Ward was hit in the face by a pitch in a game versus the Toronto Blue Jays near the end of July.
The pitch, thrown by Alex Manoah, was a 92 MPH sinker that didn’t sink.
Instead, it hit Ward near his left cheek and eye, leaving him down on all fours with blood dripping down his face.
Scary moment as Taylor Ward takes an Alek Manoah pitch up high. pic.twitter.com/4BJZ77GCgA
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) July 29, 2023
It has now been five weeks and Ward has yet to return to the playing field. And he’s not even close to returning.
Speaking to The Athletic this week, Ward discussed his feeling right after the pitch, the damage it did, and how his recovery is going.
“I don’t remember how it felt up until I could feel how it felt,” he said. “So much was going through my mind at the time that I wasn’t really thinking about the pain anymore.”
Luckily, the pitch didn’t do any damage to his eye, nor did he suffer a concussion.
What Taylor Ward did suffer, however, is pretty gruesome: a fracture to the orbital floor directly below his eye, a fracture by his temple, a fracture by his jaw, and a broken nose.
He had to have three plates inserted in surgery, the third one was put in place because his skull was loose.
After surgery he couldn’t breathe through his nose due to four-inch splints in each nostril.
He still hasn’t been able to drink through a straw.
Ward was, however, just cleared to begin riding an exercise bike.
He also knows that not everyone has been able to come back from such trauma and be the same hitter they were before, but he is trying to stay positive.
“(I’ll) try to basically get as comfortable as I can and forget what happened,” he said. “Put that in the back of your mind and let other thoughts take control.”
Ward also added that “it’s kinda cool” that he is now on a list of players like Giancarlo Stanton, Kevin Pillar and Justin Turner who have also taken pitches to the face in a Major League Baseball game.