The 36-year-old right-hander spent a full year rehabilitating from surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left knee, an injury that ended his 2022 season in late June, only to sprain a ligament in his right knee just three appearances into his return, a setback that could end Hudson’s 2023 season and, quite possibly, his career.
“That’s kind of the bitter irony in all of this,” Hudson said. “I had all the arm troubles at the beginning of my career. If you told someone that I’d throw, like, 13,000 pitches in the big leagues, and my knees would be the thing that takes me out, it’s kind of a sick joke. But at this point, it is what it is.”
Hudson, the closer for the World Series-winning Washington Nationals in 2019, is still not sure why his right knee gave out while recording the 33rd save of his 14-year career against the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 5, but he has a pretty good idea.
He sprained the medial collateral ligament in his right knee in 2019 but never went on the injured list, opting instead to push through the pain with the help of “some pills, some cortisone shots and adrenaline,” he said.
Hudson pitched in nine playoff games that October, giving up four earned runs and 10 hits, striking out 10 and walking four in 9⅔ innings, and he notched four saves, beginning with a National League wild-card win over the Milwaukee Brewers and ending with a World Series Game 7 win over the Houston Astros.
“I rehabbed the [right] knee all winter and never had an issue with it since, but the only thing I can think of is it still wasn’t 100%,” Hudson said. “I pitched through it, and maybe something was slightly off with my mechanics because of it, and all of a sudden the other side is overcompensating for it, and it just kind of popped.”
It was the anterior cruciate ligament in Hudson’s left knee that popped in a June 24, 2022, game at Atlanta, ending a promising season in which Hudson went 2-3 with a 2.22 ERA and five saves in 25 games for the Dodgers.
Hudson underwent surgery, rehabbed all winter and endured numerous setbacks this spring before finally returning, throwing a scoreless inning with two strikeouts at Kansas City on June 30 and a scoreless inning with a strikeout and a walk against Pittsburgh on July 3.
The two outings fueled optimism that Hudson would provide much-needed depth to the back end of a bullpen that ranked 23rd in baseball with a 4.47 ERA at the time, but those hopes were dashed two nights later, when Hudson injured his right knee on a pitch to Carlos Santana, who flied to left field for the second out of the ninth inning.
But Hudson, pitching on what Dodgers manager Dave Roberts described as “guts,” still found a way to win a six-pitch battle with Jack Suwinski, throwing a nasty slider to strike out the Pirates slugger with the bases loaded on his 29th pitch of the inning to close out a 6-4 Dodgers victory.
“It wasn’t super painful at the time,” Hudson said. “It really wasn’t painful until afterward, when the adrenaline wore off, and I was coming up the stairs [to the clubhouse], and I was like, ‘I gotta get to the training room and figure this thing out.’”
Hudson was diagnosed with an MCL sprain, and the knee was placed in a straight brace for several weeks. Hudson began physical therapy last week but admits there is only an “outside chance” he will be able to return in September, or maybe during the playoffs if the Dodgers can make a deep October run.
“I kind of got over all the woe-is-me stuff after a little while,” Hudson said. “You know, there’s just no point in dwelling on it. You try to wrap your head around what the hell happened, and nobody has any answers. So, it’s just like, what are you gonna do?”
Hudson has not resumed throwing and won’t until he is able to “do some dynamic stuff in the weight room,” he said. The Dodgers remain hopeful that Hudson will return in September, but they are not counting on it.
“The expectation is certainly [that he will return] at some point in time this year,” Roberts said. “But I don’t know what ‘sometime this year’ means right now.”
Hudson has pitched for seven teams in a big-league career that began with the Chicago White Sox in 2009, but he’s not sure he can endure another winter of injury rehab. His decision on whether he tries to return in 2024 or retires will hinge on how he feels if — and when — he resumes throwing this season.
“I’m kind of sick of being in pain,” Hudson said. “I just haven’t been right with the knee stuff and my ankle stuff [this past spring], and now this. It just hasn’t been a good 14 months for me. So, you know, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
If this is it for Hudson, if that slider to Suwinski was the final pitch of his career, he will be able to take some solace in how he went out.
The lasting image of Hudson’s 2022 season was of the pitcher crumpled in a heap on the Truist Park mound, his left knee writhing in pain. The lasting image of this season could be the hugs and handshakes he received from teammates and coaches after notching his first save in 392 days.
“Yeah, it’s definitely better than the last time,” Hudson said, comparing the end of his 2022 season to the possible end of 2023. “But I’m gonna try not to kick the can too far down the road and just concentrate on getting back and helping out at some point in the season. But if this is it, that’s what it is.”