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Before he’d even had his MRI he was back on the phone to his mom, asking her to contact the school and get the re-admission process started. He knew that campus would be empty, with regular students off for vacation that the university had superlative rehab facilities and that the Blue Jays had a consulting doctor who taught there.

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Three years earlier, he’d left Duke University to become a professional pitcher a few credits short of completing his sociology degree. The first idea that came to him was going back to school. He’d need something else to keep him occupied. There it really sunk in that for the next six months he wasn’t going to do anything but rehab and wait out the healing process. Stroman got off the phone, found Mirabello and went to quietly sit in the waiting room for his MRI. He cried the entire way through both calls as his parents told him he’d be all right, that he was still young, that he was going to come back. Now he had to call them and break the news that they wouldn’t be seeing him pitch any time soon. He was scheduled to pitch the Blue Jays 2015 opener against the Yankees in his home state of New York, before a bevy of family and friends, including his parents, Adlin Auffant and Earl Stroman. After a rookie campaign in which he made 20 starts for Toronto, posting a 3.29 ERA and finishing the season as the team’s best starter, he’d worked harder than ever over the off-season to come back better. But it’s gone.” Stroman took a moment to process the information: that he’d need surgery, that he’d face at least six months of rehab afterwards, that his season was over before it even started. Then he sat down on a table in Mirabello’s office, where the longtime Blue Jays doctor took one tug on Stroman’s knee and immediately knew what the training staff had strongly suspected in Dunedin. Stroman began feeding off Poulis’s energy: Maybe it was just a strain. Steven Mirabello, with Poulis driving and trying to keep the conversation light and the mood positive. He went straight from the clubhouse to the office of Dr. They wouldn’t tell him anything for certain, but Stroman could sense from the vibe in the room that something was very, very wrong. Once there, trainers got to work, bending and contorting his knee, asking what hurt and what didn’t, trying to reach an initial diagnosis. Stroman’s knee felt unstable but he didn’t have trouble making it into the Blue Jays’ training room under his own power. And it all began lying on that turf.īlue Jays trainer George Poulis arrived just as Stroman was getting up and trying to walk it off. He was about to endure the hardest thing he’s ever done. A half-year test of his patience, resolve and motivation to return from an injury that was supposed to rob him of his sophomore major-league season. It was that silent, stunned moment that initiated a nearly six-month journey unlike anything Stroman’s ever dealt with in his life.

He’ll never forget everyone staring, speechless. He’ll never forget the hollow feeling in his left knee-as if there wasn’t anything holding it together.

He’ll never forget lying on the turf at the Blue Jays’ spring training facility after bouncing off the mound during a routine bunt drill, being called off by Josh Donaldson, planting with his left leg to get out of the way and hearing something pop. Arcus Stroman will never forget the silence.

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