This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat newsletter. Zach Sweet filled in on this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO -- Jake Cronenworth spent weeks trying to hit Major League pitching with one eye arriving a split-second behind the other.
His swing wasn't broken. His eyes simply weren't working together.
"If I looked to the left or right, usually your eyes move in sync," Cronenworth said. "Mine weren't. My right eye was delayed from my left eye."
That hidden consequence of a concussion turned one of the Padres' steadiest hitters into someone he barely recognized.
Balls he normally tracked with ease blurred together. Fastballs looked different. His timing disappeared. Every night, he walked away searching for answers that had nothing to do with his mechanics.
"I was going home confused every night looking at my at-bats and wondering why I'm swinging at certain pitches," Cronenworth said earlier this week. "I felt like my swing was in a really good place. It just didn't feel right."
The numbers told the same story.
Cronenworth entered April 18 with a .167 batting average on balls in play, one of the lowest marks among qualified hitters. Then came the 97 mph fastball from Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi that struck him in the chin.
He passed the initial concussion protocol and remained in the lineup.
In 12 games from April 19 to May 4, however, he went just 4-for-31, unknowingly playing through symptoms before finally reporting vision issues that landed him on the concussion injured list May 5.
What followed was unlike any rehab of his career.
There were no sprint tests. No throwing progressions. No timetable.
Instead, Cronenworth spent weeks retraining the muscles behind his eyes.
"A lot of eye drills," he said. "Just as you rehab a muscle, you're rehabbing your eyes. You can try to speed the process up with some drills, but time is the biggest thing."
A broken rib has a recovery schedule. A strained hamstring has checkpoints.
A concussion affecting vision offers neither.
"There is no timetable," Cronenworth said. "For some guys, it's a week. Some guys, it's a couple weeks. Some guys, it's the whole year or a couple months. Every brain injury is different. I think that's the most difficult part about it."
There were stretches when the recovery seemed to stall entirely.
Some mornings, his vision felt normal. Others, it didn't improve at all.
"The hardest thing was trying to stay strong throughout the process and make sure they got right, so when I came back, I was healthy," Cronenworth said.
The breakthrough finally came in Arizona on a rehab assignment.
After facing live pitching for the first time in nearly two months, Cronenworth felt something he hadn't felt since April.
Confidence.
"Once you get back in the box and face live pitching, that's when you start getting your confidence back," he said. "Then you play a couple games, and that's when you start to see the end of the tunnel."
His rehab assignment lasted only three games.
He homered in his first at-bat with Triple-A El Paso, doubled later that night and quickly convinced the Padres he was ready to return.
The timing couldn't have been more important.
San Diego hasn't simply missed Cronenworth's production. It has missed the balance he brings to the roster.
A left-handed bat capable of grinding out professional at-bats.
Gold Glove-caliber defense at second base.
And, perhaps most importantly, a player who allows Fernando Tatis Jr. to remain in right field, where he's among baseball's elite defenders.
"We've been missing that left-handed bat in our lineup," manager Craig Stammen said. "He gives professional at-bats, works the pitcher, has the opportunity for some slug, plays great defense. He just does all the little things on the field that you kind of miss."
The results didn't come immediately after Cronenworth returned Monday.
He opened the series against the Cubs 0-for-4 before breaking through Wednesday with three singles, his first three-hit game of the entire season.
To Cronenworth, though, the biggest victory had happened long before the box score.
His eyes were finally seeing the same baseball again.
And even after the concussion fades into memory, he'll keep the exercises that got him back.
"Our eyes are a muscle," Cronenworth said. "It's just like warming up your legs or warming up your arm. Our eyes are the most important thing for us when we play. Might as well warm those up, too."