Doooooooooooooo!!!!:
“How much I enjoyed playing this game,” said Sean Doolittle, the 36-year-old relief pitcher who announced his retirement Friday after 11 seasons in the majors, appearing in 463 games and recording saves. I would be happy if people could understand that.” He appeared in 112 games during his career, posting a 3.20 ERA and 2.94 FIP. [I hope people saw] How much it meant to me to be able to wear a Major League uniform. ”
Unfortunately for Doolittle, injuries plagued him over the past few seasons, and despite spending a lot of time and effort trying to get back to the majors, it just wasn’t possible.
Eventually his body gave out and he knew it was over.
Doolittle underwent elbow surgery last summer and suffered a setback early in spring training as he worked toward a comeback and injured his knee after beginning rehab.
After all, his body finally told him it was time to call it a career.
“I’m finally at the point where I can graduate.” [rehab in] “I went to Florida and started pitching on a rehab assignment,” Doolittle explained. And unfortunately at that point the leg was pretty torn and it was already too torn to have a clean surgery, so our only option was to actually try to rehabilitate it and get other parts of the leg. It was about seeing if we could get everything back on track and get as strong as possible and see how far we could go by the end of the season. ”
Towards the end of my stay in Florida, as I was preparing to leave for my next rehab session, I injured my knee.
#nutsCloser Sean Doolittle was looking for a chance to close out 2018. @MLB All-star game underway #nationals He will park in front of his hometown fans in Washington, D.C., but will be unable to pitch due to injury. He almost had a chance of doing so. ”: https://t.co/HXxyGzfUly
— Federal Baseball (@federalbaseball) July 15, 2018
“We removed everything down to the studs and tried to strengthen every part of the leg as much as possible,” Doolittle said. “And I felt like I was progressing and just getting to the point where I had an outing that I was hoping would be my last outing in Florida, but I wasn’t going to allow it.” I made it pretty far to the end. ”
Doolittle returned to the majors and spent two years trying to pitch at Nationals Park, but at that point it was clear it wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ve spent the last two years doing my best to rehabilitate myself so I can pitch again here at Nats Park,” Doolittle told reporters.
“I did the best I could and I think that’s why today is a happy day for me. I have no regrets, I did the best I could and I had fun.
“The process of working on that and trying to change the mechanics to find a way to be effective while reducing stress on the knee was fun, and it was fun working with the young players that are there.” It is very fun. So I was still getting a lot of fulfillment and having fun, but unfortunately by the end my body just wouldn’t allow me to keep doing it. ”
Looking back on his career now that his playing days are over, Doolittle has a hard time naming one Nationals memory that he would call his favorite of the five years he played in D.C. I narrowed it down to one. It’s an important month, so you can probably guess what month it was.
“it is world series Certainly,” he said. “Among them, I mean, oh my gosh, that month was so special that it’s hard to narrow it down to just one. The wild card game and how we won that game and the party. “Then in the clubhouse. We went there and won Game 5 in L.A. and advanced to the National League Championship Series…I think the World Series parade might be the highlight.
“I think it was very special for me to share that with the fans and the way they supported us. It’s very hard to pick just one, but in October of 2019 There’s nothing better than that.”
Doolittle was an important part of the roster that was able to bring D.C. its first World Series championship since 1924, so he will become part of baseball legend in the nation’s capital. It started when he was acquired in a trade with the Oakland Athletics in 2017, but Doolittle said at the time that it was unclear how everything would go from there, winning a championship in 2019 and retiring Friday at Nationals Park. He said he couldn’t imagine it.
“I never imagined when I got traded here,” Doolittle said of what happened next.
“And we were just talking about it.” [Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo] And just like I heard my name come up in the rumors in Oakland at the previous trade deadline, nothing happened and that morning I was preparing for the game as usual. However, there were still two weeks until the deadline. So if something were to happen, I didn’t expect it to happen right away. [Bob Melvin] When he called me into his office, David Forst, who was assistant GM at the time, was on the couch, and I was like, “Oh, where are you going?” i guess. You know. And I found out I was coming here and I thought, “I was watching — I knew how well that team was doing that year, and I thought, “I was watching.” “Do they need me?” This team has a name like this, do you think I can help? And it helped a lot that I ended up going with Ryan Madson. We had been together in Oakland for a year and a half at that point and he had already had a huge impact on my career.Everyone here knew about Max. [Scherzer]I knew [Ryan Zimmerman] From university.Geo knew [González] Just a little bit from A.I knew [Matt] A little Wheaters. So I was able to calm down a bit and really felt at home. The clubhouse felt like home, and the way the city and the fans embraced us made us feel like we’d been here for a long time. ”
Doolittle forged a unique bond with A’s fans during his time in Oakland, but admitted he doesn’t know if something like that will be possible again.
“We couldn’t be more grateful to Nats fans for embracing us,” he said.
As Dolittle pondered and ultimately accepted retirement, he said:
What does he hope his performance will be in the match?
“First of all, I think my accomplishment is outsized in my career,” he said. “There were some people posting my jersey number today. I played 11 years, which is great, but I was injured for almost half of that time, so I’m grateful.” [Players’] I’m happy about that, but I tried hard to be a good teammate. ”