Bryant staying hopeful in face of chronic back injury: 'He’s having a tough time'

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Rockies’ Kris Bryant can walk but cannot run, which means he is nowhere near playing.

Bryant’s injury, diagnosed as chronic lumbar degenerative disk disease, is one of several ailments that have limited him to 170 games, or barely more than one season, in the first four years of his seven-year, $182 million contract and has him beginning 2026 on the 60-day injured list.

“Usually in the progression you start with the exercises, then you move to running,” Bryant said. “Any time my feet hit the ground, I just feel like I could probably fall over.”

Bryant, 34, was at Rockies camp on Tuesday, the first day of full-squad workouts. But unlike other years, when Bryant at least was able to begin the season on the field, he’ll soon head back to his Las Vegas home to continue rehab and hope.

The answers raise questions whether Bryant -- a 2015 NL Rookie of the Year, a 2016 NL MVP and World Series champion with the Cubs during the decorated early part of his career -- will make it back to the field. He’s in the stage of consulting with doctors and trainers, his own and the team’s.

“I don’t really have the best answer for that, because I haven’t really determined a plan, but I just am following their advice and their guidance, and obviously meeting with doctors,” Bryant said. “I met with doctors in the offseason, just to get opinions. They pass them on to the training staff and then we determine how we go.”

When it comes to how the doctors feel about his ability to return, Bryant said, “I’m just not going to dive deep into that -- I don’t want to misspeak. I haven’t read the reports. My focus has just been to find stuff that helps me wake up each day in hopefully a little less pain than the day before.”

Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer -- who on Tuesday welcomed a much-changed squad under the leadership of new president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta and general manager Josh Byrnes -- has been in contact with Bryant and is aware of the pain.

“There’s really not much to say about it, other than the guy’s back really, really hurts, and he’s having a tough time progressing,” Schaeffer said. “We have to prepare like he’s not going to play. That’s just the way that we have to go about it -- hoping that he has a recovery, a breakthrough.

“You have to realize how tough this is for ‘KB.’ There are various opinions out there, but it’s really hard for him to not be able to play, to want to play and to want to be able to feel good. It affects him at home. He wants to be a father with his kids, and he’s having a tough time bending over.”

As written, Bryant’s contract is guaranteed, meaning any adjustment based on not being able to play would have to be negotiated by the club and Bryant. But there is no indication that such talks are anywhere near happening.

Meanwhile, Bryant has purposefully not addressed the question of whether the attempt to return to the field is worthwhile.

“I honestly try not to let myself get there, because when you’re going through it every single day, you just try to make it day to day,” he said. “A lot of people out there with chronic pain, you don’t want to think so far in the future because you’re just trying to get through the day. So I haven’t let myself get there.”