Astros' McCullers knew he needed Tommy John, pitched anyway

Lance McCullers Jr. is one tough guy.

The Houston Astros right-hander underwent Tommy John surgery on Tuesday to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, and he'll miss the entire 2019 season as a result. News of the surgery came several weeks after McCullers returned to pitch for the team in the playoffs after missing much of the second half because of the forearm strain that ultimately led to the surgery.

On Wednesday, McCullers' agent, Scott Boras, revealed that his client actually knew he needed the surgery in August but elected to put it off and pitch through the injury to try to help the Astros win another World Series.

Boras told Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle that Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who performed McCullers' surgery, told the pitcher that he could only throw "an inning."

"You're not going to want to throw the second inning because it's going to hurt that bad," the doctor told him, according to Boras.

"But when Lance knew he could throw an inning, he went to (general manager Jeff Luhnow) and told the staff 'I want to be a part of that, I want to do it,'" Boras said.

McCullers previously acknowledged he was pitching "through a lot of stuff" down the stretch, but the details were unknown.

After landing on the disabled list following his start on Aug. 4, McCullers returned on Sept. 26 and threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief in three games over the final weekend of the regular season. In the playoffs, he pitched in five games, allowing two runs (one earned) while striking out four. Despite ElAttrache's instructions, McCullers threw 1 1/3 innings in Game 4 of the ALCS in what turned out to be his final pre-surgery appearance.

"Dr. ElAttrache is known as one of the best surgeons," McCullers told Mark Berman of FOX 26 Houston. "He's someone I've seen for many things in the past and someone I feel comfortable with, someone that has a long track record of successful Tommy John surgeries with the agency that I work with, the Boras Corp Agency.

"My operation went as well as I could have hoped for. Dr. ElAttrache was very happy and very excited with how the surgery went. I'm looking forward to this rehab process."