Ryan Westmoreland: "I didn't once feel overmatched"

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What surprised Ryan Westmoreland the most might have been how natural he felt.
Baseball had always come naturally to Westmoreland, a two-way star at
Portsmouth who became one of the top prospects in the Red Sox farm system
almost from the minute he signed his first pro contract. He showcased
virtually every skill a baseball player could showcase.

That, however, was before he underwent surgery to remove a cavernous
malformation from his brain stem almost two years ago, a detour that forced
him to learn again how to live his life, let alone how to play baseball. He
worked his way slowly back to hitting off a tee, to hitting soft toss, to
hitting off a pitching machine, to live batting practice.

The latest step undoubtedly was the most monumental.

Westmoreland took part in baseball games on Thursday and Friday in the
Dominican Republic, his first games since his brain surgery. He came to the
plate five times and ran out of the box when he put the ball in play, though
he did not run the bases or play the field beyond that.

"It, surprisingly, felt very similar," the 21-year-old outfielder said by
phone from Fort Myers, Fla., on Monday. "Once I stepped into the batter's
box, I felt comfortable. I kept thinking to myself, 'This is the game I've
always played.' I had confidence in my abilities to do this. Just the fact
that I was getting back in there after the past year and a half or two years
meant a lot to me. Once I dug in and was ready to hit, everything else was
out. It was all baseball. It was just doing what I grew up doing and I know
how to do."

He grounded out twice, struck out, walked and took a fastball square in the
back.

"That was a good little stinger," he said. "But it never felt so good to be
hit by a pitch like that."

Westmoreland made the decision late this summer that he wanted to get an
at-bat before the calendar turned to 2012. All parties involved -- including
Westmoreland -- had taken pains to take his rehabilitation and recovery as
slowly as possible, but it became apparent at that point that playing in a
game was a realistic goal.

"I had been looking at my progress and how things were going," he said. "I
thought it was a good goal to set at that time. I felt, overall, it was
enough time for me not to get anxious and rush into things and do too much,
but it was far enough away, based on the progress I'd made previously, that
it was something that was going to be realistic."

To prepare for a game situation, Westmoreland last month began taking swings
at more of a variety of pitches in batting practice. A typical day started
with straight fastballs followed by 20 machine-pitched simulations of
curveballs from a righthanded pitcher and 20 machine-pitched simulations of
curveballs from a lefthanded pitcher before going back to fastballs again.
"After doing that for a while, I saw myself getting better at those things,
and it became more realistic," he said. "I saw the improvement of a month's
span of doing that pretty much every day, the repetitions of every arm angle
you can think of, every pitch speed you can think of."

Westmoreland traveled to join the Red Sox instructional-league affiliate in
the Dominican Republic on Dec. 4. He was a wreck the week before he left. His
mindset shifted dramatically once he arrived.

"Once I got down there, I wasn't doing as much thinking," he said. "It was
more like, 'I'm ready. Everyone thinks I'm ready. Let's go out and do this.'
I put all the mental aspects of worrying and nerves aside. Once I was in that
mindset, it was go-time."

The pitcher on the mound Thursday was a lefty, a more difficult matchup for
the lefthanded-swinging Westmoreland, who struck out and grounded out in his
two at-bats.

"I knew that was going to happen, based on my luck," Westmoreland said with
what could only be described as an audible smile. "But it was one of those
things where I'm not going to face righties my whole life, so it was now or
never. I saw a lot of breaking pitches -- five or six of the nine pitches
that day were curveballs coming from a lefty -- so I was thrown under the bus
right away, but I was surprised at how well I handled those curveballs. I was
able to lay off some bad pitches and took some good swings."

Given a chance to face a righty in his first at-bat on Friday, Westmoreland
hit a hard ground ball to shortstop.

"Making that contact again was cool for me," he said. "I hadn't really
squared up a ball in a game for three years."

He took a fastball in the back from a lefthanded reliever -- after fouling
off a tough 0-2 slider -- in his second at-bat, and he worked a walk in his
third at-bat. He did about as well as he could have done without getting a
hit.

"The biggest thing I took out of all of the at-bats was that I didn't once
feel overmatched," he said. "That was big for me. There were lefties
throwing. One guy was throwing 94. It would have been easy for me to be
overmatched, and I really wasn't."

Westmoreland will return home to Rhode Island later this week for the
holidays, and he'll head back to Florida in January to resume his workouts --
all with the goal of one day playing at Fenway Park foremost in his thoughts.
No plan has been set for the next step, but getting at-bats in a real game
represented an enormous hurdle.

Red Sox farm director Ben Crockett said Tuesday that no discussions about the
next step for Westmoreland will take place until spring training "gets
closer."

"It's still one step at a time, and there really are no goals as of now until
we all sit down and set one," Westmoreland said. "I really have a lot of
drive to impress some people in spring training."