Red Sox left-handed pitching prospect 'lost feeling in fingers' due to same injury Zack Kelly had
Two years ago on a mound at Old Dominion University, left-handed pitcher Noah Dean was pitching through quite a bit of pain.
That pain he was feeling was located in his pitching elbow that would ultimately end in surgery after his 2021 season. The surgery he needed was nerve relocation surgery, which might sound familiar to Red Sox fans as MLB reliever Zack Kelly had the same procedure done this past season. Dean talked about it on an episode of “To the Show We Go” earlier this month.
“Obviously it was frustrating because I wanted to be that guy that could pitch Friday and Sunday, but with my whole nerve situation, it was not allowing me to do what I wanted to do.” Dean said of his injury. “We tried it a couple times and on a Friday, I would sit 92-96. On a Sunday I would be 85-87 just because I could not feel my hands or my fingers. It was very frustrating and that is what led to me getting surgery.”
We saw Zack Kelly come back towards the end of the season after getting the same surgery Dean had while in college. The left-hander would go on to pitch in 19 games his last year at Old Dominion and play in the Cape Cod League during that summer. His fastball is once again topping out at 96 MPH.
“I know it wasn’t Tommy John or anything like that but I still got my arm cut open and I had to trust my arm going full velocity.” Dean added. “Once you trust, I was going to go out there and do what I do and throw fastballs up in the zone. Luckily, it worked out for me.”
The New Jersey native would end up being selected in the fifth round of the 2022 draft by the Red Sox. Dean would spend the whole 2022 season in Salem and is projected to start next year for the Greenville Drive.
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