Tommy Edman Optimistic Ankle Surgery Will Pay Dividends

The Los Angeles Dodgers activated Tommy Edman off the 60-day injured list on Tuesday and he’s expected to make his season debut in the series finale against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Edman began the season on the injured list due to the ongoing recovery from having right ankle surgery last November.

“I’m excited. It’s been too long. Been a couple months that I haven’t gotten to play,” Edman said. “I’ve just been the best cheerleader I can be, and now I get to actually contribute.”

Edman wasn’t expected to be available until after the first couple months of the season, but that did not make the waiting any easier.

“I think just patience,” he said of the most challenging aspect. “With surgery, a lot of times it’s not a super linear progression. Having some ups and downs, and just having the faith that it was going to get back to 100% eventually. Just having the patience to let the whole process play out.”

Tommy Edman relieved after ankle surgery

Edman’s ankle surgery came after multiple seasons of experiencing sprains and lingering soreness. While the thought behind having the debridement was to put Edman in a better position moving forward, having surgery wasn’t immediately a foregone conclusion.

“It’s obviously something that I’ve dealt with the past two years, so getting the surgery was a tough decision because I knew I was going to be out for a little bit,” Edman said. “But after speaking with the doctor, we kind of determined that it was going to have a high success and high probability of getting back to 100%.

“So I just decided to go through with it, and it’s feeling great now. Took maybe a little bit longer than I expected, but I’m back to feeling normal again.”

Edman still plans to wear a brace on his surgically-repaired right ankle but one notable change is he no longer will have to heavily tape it. “Just have a regular brace,” Edman explained.

The 31-year-old also clarified that the instances where the Dodgers needed to ease up on his progression were not indicative of a setback or the ankle getting “worse.”

“The good thing was I saw progress with every step along the way. It just wasn’t as fast as I expected,” Edman explained. “There was maybe only a couple weeks there where I was kind of really like plateauing. But for the most part, I was just making progress throughout, so that kind of helps.

“Just the fact that I was able to hit new milestones pretty much every week, and just like it wasn’t able to progress as fast as I would like.