LOS ANGELES —
Garrett Richards didn’t know this was possible.
Pitching without pain? With no dark cloud of dread?
“Confidence is through the roof, just knowing everything is the way it’s supposed to be and you don’t have to worry about that part of the game,” Richards said this weekend. “I can just worry about mentally executing stuff instead of worrying, ‘Is this the day my elbow is going to unravel?’ ”
Richards spent three seasons putting off what turned out to be inevitable, pitching from 2016-18 with a bum right elbow. He underwent stem treatments but put off Tommy John surgery until last July.