Once the tears and medication had cleared and Alex Reyes found himself flipping from channel to channel, wandering from room to room at a rented home in Jupiter, Fla., the weight of his sudden situation found him. It hung, heavy, from his right shoulder.
His elbow had come apart hours before spring training started and, a day or two after surgery, he couldn’t stop wondering what he might lose.
Encased in a cast was his career, trapped before it truly started.
“Those first 24, 48 hours — they were tough. There is no other way to put it,” Reyes recalled this past week.