The Dog Days of Summer: Athletics' Hendriks Unlearning His Old Baseball Habits

Oakland Athletics closer Liam Hendriks likes to spit when he's on the mound and he goes to his mouth every time he picks up a baseball. He's trying to unlearn those habits and says it's kind of like training a dog. If he's successful, he gets a treat.

Liam Hendriks threw Saturday a live bullpen as the Oakland A’s started their three-week workout heading into the 60-game Major League Baseball schedule, working off a mound in the visitors’ bullpen.

The Oakland closer, who said his first big league in-game warmup session came on that same mound back in 2011, came out of Day 1 feeling good, which is what most players would say one day into a three-week buildup to the start of the 2020 season.

The news was particularly important coming from Hendriks, because it turns out he suffered an oblique strain early in baseball’s three-plus month shutdown over the COVID-19 corona virus.

That’s an injury that generally takes a month or more to tame, but given that the A’s have been shut down since March 12, Hendriks both had time to get injured – which he did while throwing in Arizona – and to recover.

“I’ve already been throwing bullpens,” Hendriks said. “I had a little bit of a strain to my oblique two weeks into the quarantine. So, I’ve been rehabbing for most of that time.”

The uber-competitive Hendriks said the injury occurred during a workout when he was working out with Cardinals’ pitcher Matt Libertatore, who lives in Glendale, Ariz., making him available to work with Hendriks on a regular basis.

“I was trying to throw and there was a leaderboard up on the side of the place I was throwing bullpens at,” Hendriks said. “I was throwing too hard. And so I was trying to beat Matt Liberatore” when the injury occurred.

“My stuff wasn’t quite able to get there,” Hendriks said, “but at least I got in the top five.”

Even though the A’s workouts are scheduled for three weeks, less than half of their usual length, Hendriks said he expects to be ready to go come opening day. He made it sound as if he’d be ready tomorrow.

“It doesn’t take me particularly long to get ready, and get back and be kind of game-ready,” he said.

Hendriks doesn’t know how the rest of his teammates plan to work this summer, but given family health issues, he said he plans on beginning the season wearing a mask when he is on the pitching mound. And that will take some training, because he’s one of the guys the “no spitting” rule for 2020 is going hit hardest.

And then there’s the fact that he’s always sipping on Pepsi or coffee throughout the game.

“The biggest thing is going to be making sure I like have the mask on,” he said. I’m most likely going to work the game (with a mask on) and during the games here initially I want to see how it goes.”

Hendriks is so attached to masks that he said he’s looking into creating some masks as a way to raise money for some of the charities with which he’s involved.

In addition to the mask issues, Hendriks is trying to keep from going to his mouth with his fingers. He says every time he picks up a ball, his first inclination is to go to his mouth. Now he’s trying to redirect and go to his neck.

“I’m training myself, kind of like you’d train a dog,” he said. “I pick a ball up, I refrain from going to my mouth. And then I usually get a treat after that.”

He says both he and his wife have some health issues that make them wary of contracting the coronavirus. At the same time, he said he didn’t consider giving the season a pass.

“That was never an option for me,” he said. “I’ve been playing the game for so long that I know I can kind of do my own thing, and I trust everybody on the team. It’s one of those things where I just am sure I am comfortable with everything that I’ve been doing.

“There have been certain times where I suddenly felt `I don’t know.’ But it soon passes and I’m ready to go and. I don’t want to miss this season. I don’t want to miss out on doing what I can as long as we can do it safely, which I believe we can as long as everybody buys in.”

Hendriks isn’t necessarily ready to police the clubhouse, but if he finds teammates aren’t taking the proper health precautions, those players will hear from him.

“It might take some getting used to,” Hendriks said. “But I feel like you put the fear of God into them that this is something that could make some guys on this team unhealthy but could theoretically kill some guys on this year, hopefully they’ll take it seriously.”

Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3

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