Back Outside? Why Baseball Players Get Hurt Early in the Season (and How to Avoid It)

It’s that time of year again. The days are getting longer, the weather is improving, and baseball and softball teams across Ireland are starting to move from indoor sessions back outside. And with that comes a pretty common pattern. You’re throwing a bit harder, taking more swings, and running a bit more; it feels good to be back on a full field again. For the most part, nothing feels wrong in the moment. But then the next day, or a few sessions later, you start to notice a little bit of soreness, maybe something more specific, or something that lingers and starts to affect how you play. If that’s you, you haven’t done anything wrong, but your body is telling you something - it’s just not always obvious what.

Why Injuries Happen Early in a Baseball Season

The start of the baseball and softball season is one of the most common times for injuries to show up. Even at the professional level, a large portion of injuries happen during spring training and early in the season. This is because the demands of the game change quickly. Indoor training has its place, but it comes with less space, lower intensity, and more controlled movement. When you move outside, everything ramps up at once - throwing distance increases, effort increases, volume often increases, and the overall unpredictability of the game comes back. Even if you’ve been training all winter, this is still a jump that happens all at once, and your body has to deal with all of it at the same time.

It’s Not Damage- It’s a Load Problem

A lot of these early-season issues get labelled as “overuse injuries”, which can make it sound like something is worn out or damaged. Most of the time, though, that is not what is happening. A better way to think about it is this: your body is dealing with a mismatch between what you’re asking of it and what it’s currently prepared for. Your body adapts to the loads you put through it, which is the purpose of training. However, these adaptations take time. When your throwing, hitting, and running all increase at once, your body just hasn’t caught up yet. It becomes a matter of “too much, too soon.”

Why This Happens Even If You Trained All Winter

It can be frustrating when you have been training consistently, doing some throwing and hitting, and still have something flare up. Even if you’ve been doing baseball activities indoors, it’s more about what you are preparing for. Indoor work doesn’t fully prepare you for full-distance throws, game-speed effort and repeated high-intensity movements. So when these show up all at once, the jump in demand can be enough to tip things over.

Soreness vs. Injury: What’s Normal?

Some soreness early in the season is completely normal. That general, slightly stiff feeling a day or two after training is just your body responding to something new. When talking about overuse injuries though, it tends to feel a bit different:

• More specific to one area

• More noticeable with certain movements

• Sharper and/or more painful

• Something that builds over a few sessions

Even with these symptoms, it still doesn’t necessarily mean a tissue is damaged. In a lot of cases, it’s better to think of this as a sensitive or irritated area, rather than a broken one.

How to Avoid the ‘Too Much, Too Soon’ Trap

This is where things get tricky, because no one is counting every throw or swing, and there is no perfect formula for how much is “too much.” But there are a few principles that go a long way:

• You want to build, not spike. That means letting your throwing, hitting, and running increase gradually instead of all at once.

• The point at which you’re starting to feel some soreness or fatigue in a body part is usually a good time to start to wind down from activities for that session. It’s usually better to nip things in the bud.

• It’s tempting to go all out in those first few outdoor sessions, especially when you’re feeling good. But maxing out early is an easy way to create that mismatch between load and tolerance.

• Early on, consistency matters more than intensity. Getting regular exposure to the demands of the game is what helps your body adapt.

• Adding some basic strength work alongside your training can help build tolerance over time (especially if you’ve had issues in the past), but it doesn’t need to be complicated.

• It’s worth expecting some soreness. Trying to avoid it completely usually leads to doing too little, which doesn’t help your preparation either.

What To Do If Pain Starts to Show Up

If you do start to notice something more specific or limiting, the goal isn’t to ignore it - but it’s also not to shut everything down. Most of the time, the best approach is to adjust your activity rather than stop it. That might look like reducing how much you’re throwing or hitting, lowering the intensity or modifying what you’re doing for a short period. From there, you can gradually build things back up once it settles. It’s a simple idea, but an important one: settle things down first, then build them back up. If it’s not settling or is starting to affect how you’re able to play, that’s usually a good time to get it checked out by someone who understands baseball and softball.

You’re Not Broken

The start of the season is always a bit of a shock to the system. More volume, more intensity, more effort, all at once. This is a really common part of the early season, even for players who have done a lot of things right leading into it. If something flares up, it doesn’t mean you’re fragile or injury-prone, or you’ve done something wrong. More often than not, it just means your body hasn’t caught up to what you’re asking of it yet, and it needs a bit more time to get there.

If you’re not sure how to balance training and recovery, or something starts to feel off, that’s exactly what I help with - especially for baseball and softball athletes navigating the start of the season.