Giants reliever Randy Rodriguez’s lengthy road to recovery officially has begun after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right throwing elbow Wednesday.

Stanford Medicine’s Marc Safran, M.D., spoke to NBC Sports Bay Area to provide more insight on the injury itself, a potential timeline for Rodriguez’s return and what the Giants could expect from the 26-year-old when he does get back on the mound.

Rodriguez initially sought out multiple opinions after the Giants placed him on the 15-day IL in late August. He had hoped to avoid surgery, but doctors made the recommendation to move forward with the procedure.

Dr. Safran detailed what goes into that recommendation to go through with the surgery versus opting out and seeking other options.

“It’s kind of shades of grey. Everybody’s a little bit different,” Dr. Safran said. “Some people are more loose-jointed than others. It’s almost always looser when I test that ligament on a professional player on their throwing side than their non-throwing side, even though they may be asymptomatic. So it’s really hard because there’s no objective measure that determines, ‘Oh yes, he definitely now needs surgery.’

“I mean, he’s been dealing with some elbow soreness, as most players, for a long period of time. And he’s had issues that date back to — I think even last season. It comes down to a point where they probably say, OK, well, we’ve tried all the nonoperative things that we would normally try: rest, strengthening, rehabilitation, maybe some injections. And if that doesn’t work and you still can’t get back to throwing the way you want to throw, then it’s time to go ahead and do the surgery.

“Unfortunately, it’s not all black and white. It’s really based on how his elbow responds to the rest of the rehabilitation.”

Rodriguez’s estimated rehab is 12 to 14 months, but as Dr. Safran noted, it could be longer.

While each player is different, the checklist a player must go through to return to the mound is pretty standard.

“It’s a very long and drawn-out process,” Dr. Safran said. “It’s first letting the wounds heal, working on getting his range of motion back to the elbow, and it’s working on the elbow and wrist muscles to get them stronger. It takes several months before we even let them start to do a throwing program where they go through light toss, 30 feet with a limited number of throws, and just kind of arcing the ball, so it’s a long thing that has to be drawn out to where they start to throw more throws at a longer distance and at a flatter rate before they actually try to let the ball go.

“Sometimes it’s not uncommon to get some elbow soreness during that process, so we want to be conservative to not push them back too fast because the graft undergoes a breakdown process and a build-back process, and that’s part of what takes so long to get back.”

Most people hear the term “Tommy John surgery” and their initial reaction, understandably, is worry and concern.

But Dr. Safran explained how the evolution of the impact of the procedure has helped players avoid ending their careers, and he gave Giants fans a glimmer of hope with Rodriguez’s recovery.

“That injury was a career-ending injury in the 70s, but since the Tommy John operation, it’s not as career-ending anymore,” Dr. Safran said. “A lot of players get back at a very high rate. The majority do get back. And there’s even some people who feel they come back stronger because their elbow is tighter than maybe it was in the year or two before. Some people say, ‘Well, I can throw a couple miles per hour faster after the surgery than before.’

“I think that’s been a little bit debunked. I don’t think the majority of people gain much velocity on the ball, but players can get back and, in fact, many can get back not just their velocity but their spin rates can get back, so they can still have a good action on the ball. So it’s not the death sentence, if you will, if you have that injury anymore. There’s so many people in the major leagues that have had that ligament reconstructed and are pitching at the major league level very effectively.”

While the Giants certainly will miss their All-Star during the 2026 season, there’s reason to believe Rodriguez will return to the bump as the same dominant flamethrower.

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