Sean Murphy had a collapsed lung during the offseason and was late to arrive at A's spring training.But he's coming back in a timely manner, however.
“He’s swinging the bat now in the cage, he’s throwing more -- each and every day he’s taking on a little more,” Melvin said on Wednesday. “Catching, doing pretty much everything. It’s still going to be a little bit of time."
Murphy underwent two surgeries for this “weird thing” that set him back a while.
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“It kind of sprung up on me too,” Murphy said last week.
How he ultimately got this collapsed lung, he’s not sure, but there is speculation he could have coughed in his sleep.
“So I woke up, it was like January 28 --I don’t remember the exact date -- and I just had chest pains, just had tightness in my chest so I figured it was COVID, but it just kept getting worse. So we went to the emergency room, they did a chest X-ray and they said, ‘You know, your lung is fully collapsed.’”
“Once he gets close to being on the field, I’ll let you know -- but it’s just ramping up and all the different areas that we already talked about where we started up,” Melvin added.
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Murphy slashed .233/.364/.457 last season with an .821 OPS in 43 games and was fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting.
Murphy said the timeline for his return looks to be toward the end of spring training. Doctors and surgeons around him have said an Opening Day return is very probable.