Hudson progressing in rehab from surgery

It’s almost impossible to hurry a 12-month recovery from elbow reconstruction surgery. The protocol doesn’t exactly allow for a lot of sudden movements.

Except maybe in Tim Hudson’s case.

The day in December when surgeon Dr. James Andrews cleared him to begin throwing, he wasn’t halfway through the door, home from Birmingham, before he found himself a throwing partner.

“I said ‘Get your glove, babe,’ ” Hudson said.

Kim Hudson was in the kitchen. Their children were just home from school. The sun was beginning to set. Kim, who plays co-ed softball, hadn’t played catch with her husband since he was in the minor leagues.

But out the back door they went of their Peachtree City home to give Hudson his first test since his Aug. 8 surgery.

“The first few throws were definitely exciting,” said Hudson, 33, who’d never had surgery before. “I was like ‘All right, I’m going to throw it 10 feet or 50 feet. Where is it going to go?’ “

They played catch from 45 feet, two sets of 20 throws.

“I’m going to be honest with you, her first few throws had a little more zip on them than mine did,” Hudson said. “I was testing the waters at first, I was making sure it didn’t pop out of my skin the first couple throws. Then I was able to throw it in there a little better.”

The Hudson running joke is that Kim offered Tim a tendon from her wrist for the surgery. A tendon is transplanted from a player’s forearm, or hamstring, knee or foot if the patient doesn’t have one in his forearm, as was the case with Hudson.

“I said ‘You could try mine and maybe this could be a breakthrough thing, and you might throw 110 (mph),’ ” Kim Hudson said. “He said ‘Or I’d come out throwing like a girl.’ He decided against that. He said ‘Even if I did throw 110, I don’t want people to know I have like a girl arm.’ “

Hudson is not quite up to 110 just yet, but he is progressing well in his throwing program. He’s building up strength in his elbow playing catch from distances up to 120 feet. Last week he was back down throwing from 60 feet and decided to do it off a mound while at the Braves early pitching camp.

“I’m starting to feel like a baseball player again,” Hudson said.

Hudson expects to be throwing bullpen sessions some time in March. If all goes well, he’s aiming at a mid-to-late August comeback.

To get there, he knows he has to be patient. That’s something he’s improved on, his wife Kim said, since his two stints on the disabled list with oblique problems.

“He’d complain,” she said. “Complain that he didn’t hurt, complain that he could be pitching, complain that he wasn’t pitching, complain that he could be helping the team. He just doesn’t like not feeling a part of the team.”

This time he had three children at home to keep him occupied. He coached his 7-year-old daughter Kennedie’s softball team last fall.

With the Braves’ acquisitions of Javier Vazquez, Kenshin Kawakami and Derek Lowe, Hudson could have felt even less a part of things lately. But Kim Hudson said he actually feels a greater responsibility now that John Smoltz has gone to Boston.

“Maybe even now more than ever he feels like a leader,” she said.

One of the benefits of the time away to rehab, Hudson said, is time to build up his shoulder strength and work on his form. In recent years, he said, as his shoulder wore down, his arm angle dropped and the spin on his pitches flattened.

That was one of his big problems, he said, when he went 13-12 with a 4.86 ERA in 2006.

“Now after going through all the rehab and doing a good job on my rotator cuff things, it’s like my arm is getting to spots it hadn’t been in four years,” Hudson said.

Hudson in the final year of his four-year $47 million contract and has a $12 million mutual player-club option for 2010. He wants to make an impact on the Braves’ division chances coming down the stretch and prove to the Braves he’s back to form.

“I’m hoping they like what they see enough to pick it up,” said Hudson. “If not, I’m still young and if things come back really well with this elbow, which I have all intentions that they are, I see myself pitching another seven, eight years. Got a new elbow, man. Ready to go.”