Back on the mound after Tommy John surgery

Manhattan College pitcher Mike Scarinci first injured himself in April 2013. This season, he is pitching with a 3.94 ERA, but his comeback didn’t come easily — he is one of many young pitchers to undergo Tommy John surgery, an elaborate procedure that has reached epidemic levels in both the pros and in college.

“I felt a tightness and then I was pitching in a game, and it just got worse and worse,” Scarinci, 22, recalled. “And then eventually it was at the point where I was throwing the ball 55 feet, I couldn’t get it to the plate.

“My velocity dipped eventually. Every pitch was just screaming pain as if someone was stabbing me in the elbow.”

The slinger rested for two weeks after his injury and rehabbed, but couldn’t get himself to even 75 percent.

The first doctor’s opinion he received said it was a partial tear of his UCL, an elbow ligament, and the second and third opinions said it was a full-blown tear. He later underwent TJ surgery in June of that year and returned to the mound this season. Through April 5, Scarinci has made five starts for the Jaspers and owns a 2-4 record.

Not too long ago, Tommy John surgery only took place on adults, according to the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. The procedure is increasingly common, with more surgeries — 80 — happening among pro pitchers in 2014 than throughout the entire 1990s, according to ESPN’s Sport Science.

Cases among much younger pitchers are increasingly common, with 40 percent of all TJ surgeries happening among teenagers in 2010.

“Every pitch that anybody’s ever thrown, from the time they started throwing, is where it counts,” said Dr. Tony Wanich, a Montefiore sports medicine specialist. “This injury is not this one-time throw that just pops it… When you focus on one sport so exclusively, over time it just takes that toll.”

Partial tears are developed throughout a career without a pitcher realizing it, but breaks between pitching heal the UCL and helps their longevity, he continued.