C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — A week of work in spring training isn’t much of a milestone, even for someone who missed most of the last two seasons. Devin Mesoraco feels good as he’s returning from two hip surgeries and a shoulder surgery in the last two years, but it’s still been just a week of limited participation in both catching and hitting drills.

“It's nice to be out on the field, for sure. That's been a long time coming,” Mesoraco said before Tuesday’s workout. “It's nice, but this is obviously the first stuff of many, it's good, but this ain't the ultimate goal.”

Mesoraco has been doing just about everything he’d do in a normal spring training, except he’s doing less of it. The Reds will start Cactus League games this Friday, but Mesoraco is more likely to be a spectator than a participant for a couple of weeks.

“We’re trying to avoid the too much, too soon issue,” Reds manager Bryan Price said on Tuesday morning. “We’ll just stay with the plan we have set for him and that’s to incrementally increase his workload until he’s ready for games. We’ll do the same thing when I meter out the innings for him.”

Mesoraco said his hips feel fine and he has no issues with squatting or any of the movements he’s asked to do behind the plate. His swing, though, is a different story.

“My swing has a long ways to go, but as far as the health of my shoulder, I feel good,” he said.

The shoulder injury wasn’t due to a specific event, but it was something that he had been dealing with over a prolonged period of time, leading to bad habits, Mesoraco said.

“I wasn't able to get back to my traditional launch position in my swing based on the pain I had back there,” Mesoraco said. “Based on talking to Doc, this is something that had been going on for a while. Maybe I didn't feel it, but subconsciously, I felt like it affected my swing. I'm just trying to forget all that bad muscle memory I had from that time period and try to get back to where I was when I was going good.”