Doctors told Spruce Creek's Shane Lavin he may never pitch again. He's about to prove them wrong.

PORT ORANGE — Shane Lavin jokes he should have thrown a fastball.

He can smile about it now — nine months later. But this was serious.

On June 1, 2023, while pitching for the Orlando Scorpions, his travel ball team, Lavin toed the rubber with two outs in the seventh and final inning. He held a 2-2 count over the batter and went to his strikeout pitch.

He threw a slider.

His life hasn’t been the same since.

The injury

Matt Cleveland remembers exactly where he was.

Spruce Creek’s head coach was driving onto the I-95 ramp from state route 44 when he received a call from one of his assistants.

“He just said, ‘I’ve got bad news,’” Cleveland said.

Later, he saw the video.

While delivering the 2-2 breaking ball, Lavin’s left arm snapped. It sounded like a gunshot, as the ball tumbled off to the side. Lavin felt immediate numbness. He peered down at his dangling arm and crouched to the ground.

“After that, I don’t really know,” Lavin said. “Everything just kind of went like a blur.”

He rode to the hospital in an ambulance. When he arrived, the doctors instructed him to hold his left arm against his midsection with his right arm. They didn’t know exactly what the problem was.

Lavin had dealt with other injuries last spring. He missed the first six weeks of his junior season with a back strain and experienced a few other bumps and bruises throughout the campaign. Nothing major or long-lasting, through.

When he was on the hill for the Hawks, he established himself as one of the Volusia-Flagler area’s best pitchers. In 31⅓ innings, he posted an 0.89 earned run average and struck out 48 hitters. He earned starts in the regional and state semifinals. A few college coaches had expressed interest.

His velocity reached into the upper 80s, and his arm felt great. Even on June 1, nine days after Spruce Creek’s postseason run ended in the final four, Lavin had not experienced any pain prior to that final pitch.

At first, doctors thought he tore his bicep. The X-rays revealed something different: a spiral humerus break. They had never seen it.

“I didn’t really know what to think about that,” Lavin said. “I thought it was just over.”

The first steps

After a few hours, the medical staff sent Lavin home.

He wasn’t comfortable. He didn’t sleep well. The doctors had given him only Advil for the pain.

The next day, he returned to the hospital to have the bone set. Surgery loomed as an option. The Lavins consulted multiple professionals who recommended it. But the procedure would’ve required doctors to cut through all the muscles in that area of his arm. He would’ve carried a gnarly scar.

And they said he probably wouldn’t pitch again.

Lavin dismissed that idea quickly.

So they set the bone. Five minutes. No anesthesia. Lavin blacked out again, so they used smelling salts to bring him back to consciousness.

Doctors applied a plastic wrap around his arm that ranged from his shoulder to his elbow. Then, they gave him a sling and assigned him to it for three months.

The timeframe for recovery was 9-12 months, and even then, Lavin was told he might have some limitations. There was a chance he would not be able to move his arm above his head. Even without surgery, there was a chance he wouldn’t pitch again.

“There was no real protocol,” Cleveland said. “It was just a matter of when his arm healed.”

The only time Cleveland had heard of an injury like Lavin’s was former major-league pitcher Dave Dravecky. In 1988, Dravecky developed a tumor in his arm and underwent surgery that removed half of his deltoid muscle and froze his humerus in an attempt to eliminate all the cancer cells.

Less than a year later, Dravecky returned to the mound. In the middle of one of his first outings, his arm began tingling. He cracked his humerus an inning later.

Lavin got tested for underlying conditions that might have caused his break, but they all came back negative — a good sign.

He dove into physical therapy. It didn’t last long, though.

“I went probably three weeks, and I was like, ‘Yeah, this is not how I’m going to roll. It has to be more hardcore than this,’” Lavin said before mimicking a bicep curl. “They were making me do, just moving it like this with no weights, nothing. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to do more if I want to come back.’”

That remained the goal from Day 1.

“I didn’t care if I was back throwing 50 miles per hour or back throwing where I was,” he said. “I just wanted to get back.”

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The comeback

After enduring the three months in the sling, with his arm bent at a 90-degree angle, Lavin kicked off his rehab. Mostly, he worked alone, in his bedroom. A lot of mobility exercises, trying to improve his range of motion.

Spruce Creek’s coaching staff helped him create a plan.

“We had to slow him down,” Cleveland said.

“They had to slow me down quite a few times,” Lavin responded.

Now a senior, Lavin provided a constant presence around the Hawks’ fall ball schedule and offseason workouts.

“He’s never complained,” Cleveland said. “He’s never felt sorry for himself. He just put his head down and went to work on getting healthy with something none of us thought we’d experience. We’re just hoping everything continues the way it is, and he can get out and enjoy his senior year.”

“Never had the thought of giving up,” Lavin said. “I still had this dream. This game has been my whole life out of the womb. There are good times. There are bad times. This arm injury was definitely probably one of the most traumatic and tragic things. But I just had to push through it, stay positive for everyone because a lot of people were counting on me.”

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Four months post-injury while still in the plastic sleeve, Lavin lifted his first weight. He also could hoist his arm above his head.

At five months, he started lobbing tennis balls.

And finally, in early January, he tossed a baseball for the first time since June 1. He didn’t hesitate.

“The first time, it felt absolutely amazing,” Lavin said. “The second time, horrible. As soon as it set in like, ‘Wow, I’m really doing this again,’ it finally hit me like, ‘Oh, OK, this is back to real life.’”

Predictably, his arm was sore. He dedicated the last two months to building up strength and relearning his mechanics.

Throughout his rehab, he attended biweekly X-rays. The bone healed with only a slight curve, and Lavin recovered more than 90% mobility. His doctors were amazed.

When Spruce Creek’s 2024 season started on Feb. 20, Cleveland inserted Lavin into the lineup as the designated hitter. He played in each of their first three games — all wins. He ripped his first hit, a double, against Flagler Palm Coast last Tuesday.

He took a giant leap toward stepping onto the mound again, too.

On Feb. 23, he threw his first bullpen session with his full pitch repertoire. His second bullpen was scheduled for Friday.

They haven’t measured his velocity yet, but that’s not important.

“I told him, I don’t care if he throws 84 or 86 or 82,” Cleveland said. “He can pitch. And even if it’s 82-85, he can pitch in college. And not to focus on throwing hard.

“I was the batter for his bullpen, and it got me excited. I didn’t tell him that. It got me excited, but we still have to continue to be patient. Maybe not everybody would do that, but here, we have to take care of these guys.”

Lavin knows he’s getting close, too. He’s been having dreams about looking in for the catcher's sign, winding up and chucking the ball past a fooled hitter.

So, when? When is he going to pitch again?

“Uh, he’s starting tomorrow night,” Cleveland deadpanned before a smile broke across his face.

He glanced at Lavin. Lavin grinned back at him. Both chuckled.

“No, I’m just kidding,” Cleveland said.

But pretty soon, that won’t be a joke.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: FHSAA baseball: Spruce Creek hurler Shane Lavin beats rare arm injury