FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Red Sox reliever Tyler Thornburg acknowledged Wednesday that he might have been pushing too hard to get over the arm fatigue that dogged him throughout his first Spring Training with the Red Sox.
Now that he knows he will start the season on the disabled list with an impingement of his right shoulder and is no longer racing against the clock to be in the bullpen for Opening Day, Thornburg is confident his shoulder will heal as it should. He won't do any throwing for the next week.
Thornburg felt some discomfort in his shoulder as early as his first Grapefruit League outing on Feb. 25. He had a second straight subpar outing on March 1 and didn't take the mound again until a Minor League stint on March 24.
But in those ensuing three weeks, Thornburg admits he was too impatient, and that is why he suspects his shoulder is still enough of an issue that he couldn't return to Grapefruit League action as scheduled earlier this week.
"I took three days off from throwing maybe and then tried to push it and get enough games in, hoping it was going to work itself out," Thornburg said. "It kind of is attributed to that a little bit. I'm kind of relieved in the fact that I don't have to try to push it to get ready by a certain date and can actually take my time to know that I'm going to feel well at the end of it."
Earlier this month, Red Sox manager John Farrell and Thornburg said that the club's shoulder program for pitchers can take an adjustment period for new acquisitions to get used to and could have created some of the fatigue the reliever was feeling.
However, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and Farrell emphatically stated on Tuesday that the team's shoulder program did not cause Thornburg's injury.
"If anything, it might have fatigued my arm a little bit before the first outing," Thornburg said. "Or it possibly could've pointed out some weaknesses in my shoulder or something that wasn't working properly. That's all stuff we were figuring out in the last couple days. [I] really feel like we should work on certain areas of my arm to keep those a lot stronger, and that should help everything else."
Worth noting
• Chris Sale will start Friday's game at Nationals Park, while Eduardo Rodriguez will take the ball for Saturday's contest at the Naval Academy. There was initially some thought to Sale and Rodriguez starting Minor League games in Fort Myers instead because of uncertainty in the weather forecast.
• The annual Hot Stove Cool Music concert at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston on April 29 has added quite the headline act. It was announced Wednesday that Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder will be performing. Vedder has a long-standing friendship with Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein. This year's Hot Stove Cool Music concert is a joint Red Sox and Cubs event, with all proceeds going to charity. A limited amount of VIP ticket packages are available at redsox.com/champions.