Under The Knife 9/5/25

Choppin' It Up

Ready pitchers? Eat your broccoli or better, drink it. I’m not one for crackpot supplements and I know just how dark the dark side of it can get, but there’s real research behind this one and some athletes are already using it. Broccoli juice might sound like a bad George Bush joke, but it’s already become part of the endurance toolkit in Europe. This isn’t the kale smoothie craze or whatever your uncle’s trainer is pushing on Facebook. It’s peer-reviewed work, eight years of it, coming out of Karolinska Institutet (the Nobel Prize people) and the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, the same people who put beet juice on the sports science map. Jon Lundberg, Eddie Weitzberg, Filip Larsen – these are credible names who’ve been studying how compounds in plants can tweak the body’s chemistry under strain.

The idea is simple: broccoli sprouts are loaded with isothiocyanates. When stabilized and concentrated into a shot, they change how your muscles respond to heavy work. Cyclists given the juice in double-blind crossover trials had lower lactate, less oxidative stress, and better endurance across training blocks. Mads Pedersen, a world champion with Lidl–Trek, has talked openly about using the supplement. Swedish stars like Tove Alexandersson and William Poromaa have credited it with helping them hold form late in races. Andreas Almgren, who broke the European 10K record, used it during his buildup. These aren’t weekend warriors, they’re podium athletes. When they say it makes them feel fresher deeper into effort, that gets noticed.

For pitchers, this isn’t about running marathons. It’s about surviving the grind of repeated, max-effort bursts. Every fastball is an interval. Every inning is a set. Fatigue isn’t abstract – it’s the drop in velocity in the sixth, the hanging slider on pitch 92, the recovery day that doesn’t quite get you back. Baseball has flirted with these things before. Beet juice was tried because the nitrate–nitrite–nitric oxide pathway improves blood flow and efficiency. Some players even went to Viagra for the same reason; it works on the nitric oxide system, relaxes blood vessels, and increases oxygen delivery. There are plenty of stories about cyclists and ballplayers experimenting with those little blue pills for performance, not for bedroom jokes. The science makes sense even if the optics are awkward.

Broccoli juice is a new angle on the same target. Instead of just improving blood flow, it appears to stop some lactate from forming in the first place. Less lactate means less burn, more repeatability, better recovery. That’s why endurance athletes are already using it. If they’re seeing a difference in late-race performance, pitchers have every reason to think it could keep them sharper late in games or fresher in August. It’s not a miracle, it’s not going to turn an 89 on the gun into 97, but in a sport where tiny margins decide seasons, ignoring a proven supplement because it comes in a green shot glass would be foolish.

Somewhere between the sketchy powders and the obvious caffeine hits, there’s a middle ground of legitimate, tested tools. Broccoli juice may just belong there. It’s already on the bus in pro cycling, already part of world-class training camps in Sweden, and already credited by athletes who make their living on the knife edge of fatigue. Pitchers, of all people, should be paying attention.

Now, let’s get to the injuries:

WILL SMITH, C LAD (bruised hand)

I won’t go all #paddedglove on Will Smith, but I remain dumbfounded about baseball and protective equipment, especially catchers. One knee down catchers should be wearing a thigh guard at the very least, though football players around the country are suddenly wearing what looks like John Stockton shorts - no kneepads at all, not even fabric. Are thigh and knee bruises up? I don’t know, but I do know catchers get knocked around and if there’s some device that isn’t heavy, isn’t hot, and isn’t goofy looking, I don’t get the objection.

Smith took a simple foul off his hand. X-rays were negative, but Dave Roberts told the media that Smith will go for further tests to make sure the bruise is just a bruise. For a catcher and his throw hand, it’s about grip on the ball and the bat and yes, teams will test him if they think he’s even slightly slower glove-to-throw.

As of now, he’s not on the IL, but the Dodgers did add Ben Rortvedt to the roster by DFAing Alexis Diaz. (Hey Mets, need another bullpen arm?) Dalton Rushing will take more of the load while Smith is out. With Shohei Ohtani locked in at DH, Smith will have to be able to catch before he can return.

ROMAN ANTHONY, OF BOS (strained oblique)

Marcelo Mayer is already done for the season after his wrist surgery. Now fellow rookie Roman Anthony might be done for what’s left after an MRI confirmed there was a Grade II oblique strain. This is normally about a month, often longer when the team is being cautious, and there’s not as much calendar left as that. What complicates things is that the Sox are functionally tied with the Yankees, not far back from the Jays, and locked into a playoff slot. (A 96.6 percent chance, per Clay Davenport.)

One of the things few people outside of the training rooms understand is that even with season-ending injuries, the player usually sticks around and does his rehab. There are cases where they’re sent out or do it at home or by their surgeon, but a simple muscle strain is going to be rehabbed normally because the team needs to know - does the player fully heal? Does he heal normally or is this something that has to be monitored and/or maintained?

While Anthony won’t be back in season, the Sox might get him back in October and they’ll have plenty of notice. Oblique strains show themselves in the first two weeks. That’s where the vast majority of setbacks happen and if Anthony gets past that, we could see him (or hear tales) swinging by the end of the month. That would put him on track for October and that’s where we might just see a little bit of wiggle room.

“If it was the playoffs” can often make teams get a bit rash. If the Sox face off with the Yankees in a short series, crazy is going to happen. Enough to push the team with Anthony? That’s less clear. They clearly have a long term investment in him though one could argue that the downside - a recurrence - would heal long before spring rolls around and even then isn’t likely to become a chronic issue. We’ll see how the team’s context plays out soon enough.

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