FORT MYERS, Fla. — Baseball is a brotherhood. The Twins’ Phil Hughes wanted to help the Mets’ Matt Harvey any way he could regarding the right-hander’s thoracic outlet syndrome surgery.
The Dark Knight is fearless on the mound, but this was uncharted waters. He was facing a surgery last July he knew little about, so Harvey reached out to the ex-Yankee and Hughes helped put Harvey at ease.
After all, getting a rib removed is a big deal.
“I had the surgery maybe 10 days before Matt did, so he reached out and texted me on what to expect,’’ Hughes told The Post Wednesday at Hammond Stadium.
The two soon spoke.
“I could sense that he was feeling pretty nervous about it,’’ Hughes said. “The anxiety is always worse going into a surgery. It sounds like a scary thing, but it’s pretty routine, actually. I asked him, ‘Well, you’ve had Tommy John before?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, but for some reason I feel more anxiety about this than Tommy John.’ ’’
Hughes was ahead of Harvey on the surgery timeline so he had some solid answers — pitcher to pitcher.
“I hope I helped him,’’ Hughes said. “I was just telling him how easy mine went. I was antsy too going into it, but once I saw how quickly I bounced back it was pretty good.
“We spoke about a week after he had his surgery, too. Just to see how he was doing and he said he felt great.’’
A top rib is removed to release the pressure on nerves and blood vessels that are being pinched between the rib and shoulder blade and can create a tingling feeling in the fingers and loss of feeling.
Velocity decreases, command suffers. Surgery removes the impingement.
“It was so strange, I wasn’t feeling right for the longest time,’’ Hughes said of his symptoms. “When I would start a game it would feel like the seventh inning in the first inning. I couldn’t figure out what it was, my arm felt dead. It was tough. People question you. I know what I was going through in Minnesota, I can only imagine what he was going through in New York.
“It’s a hard thing to diagnose,’’ said Hughes, who was 1-7 with a 5.95 ERA last season. Harvey was 4-10 with a 4.86 ERA.
Hughes, 30, guessed the problem was with him for “a good while.’’
“I was just happy to finally get an answer,’’ Hughes said.
Hughes’ sense of humor is on display on his Twitter account. A couple days after the surgery he tweeted: “Thoracic Outlet Syndrome is so hot right now.’’
As for this spring, he said: “I’m glad I can be on the same schedule as everyone else.’’
It may take a little time for Harvey and Hughes to regain their velocity.
Fifty-five miles up the road from the Twins is the Rays spring training home in Port Charlotte. That is where pitcher Alex Cobb, who had the surgery late in the 2011 season, said it was a bit of process to regain his velocity.
“When I woke up from that surgery, I felt like a shotgun went off in my shoulder,’’ said Cobb, who was 24 at the time. “It felt fine once I started pitching again, but I just didn’t regain my velocity right away until later in the 2012 season. I was young.
In Matt’s case, he has that knowledge of pitching. What he can do when he’s healthy is far beyond your average big league pitcher.
“The peace of mind for him is knowing he just has to get back to being himself. I had the best season of my career (11-3, 2.76) in 2013. Every once in a while now, I just have a little tightness in my neck.’’
As a sidelight to the surgery both Hughes and Cobb kept the removed rib. Cobb gave it to his father as a birthday present.
“It’s about the size of a pinkie,’’ Cobb said before adding with a smile, “Eventually my dad gave it back.’’
“The rib is parallel to your collarbone so all those veins and nerves that run through that passage so they take that out to have more space for the stuff to run through,’’ Hughes explained. “I know more about it now than I ever wanted to. Coming out of surgery I was feeling pretty awful, but five days later I was coming around a little bit.
“I feel great now, I just hope this is the answer to a lot of issues that I was having.”
Over on the other side of the state of Florida, Matt Harvey has the same hope.
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