I think they were appreciative and thankful.”Īs often as the job has allowed, Scott has visited the children’s hospital in Boston since he became a Red Sox. “I don’t know for certain and I don’t want to speak for certain, but just by texts their spirits were high. “As big a fighter and competitor as Craig is, for him to say that about his daughter. “The word he uses the most is how big of a fighter she is,” Scott said Monday morning. In return, he received a photo of Lydia Joy in her parents’ arms. Today we’re wearing #LydiaStrong shirts as we continue to keep the Kimbrel family and their daughter, Lydia, in our thoughts and prayers. And he hoped and prayed and rooted some more. Sometimes a few hearts start to sync up, sometimes more, and for two weeks it gnawed at Robby Scott that he was here and his friend was up there and the encouraging text messages and phone calls didn’t feel like enough. Maybe they’d make an odd pair – Kimbrel the superstar closer and Scott the undrafted lefty who’d chased a dream perhaps only he really believed in – but the life draws you in, draws you close, and the brotherhood begins to extend to the 21 hours around the games as well. Scott watched with interest as Kimbrel prepared for the season, copied some of it, then shared a bullpen bench and a clubhouse and their lives for much of last season. They reconnected when Scott was summoned to the big leagues for a short time, and then again the following spring. They met then, for as long as it took Kimbrel to pitch to three batters before hurrying back to Boston. Robby Scott was pitching in Pawtucket two seasons back when Kimbrel arrived on a rehabilitation assignment. We hold a special place for the people who treat our children well, who care for ours like we care for ours, who love them, sometimes just because they are ours, and who share that thing in our stomachs when it gets scary. Craig and Ashley held Lydia Joy on Sunday for the first time since the surgery, an event that happened to coincide with the LydiaStrong message reaching the Kimbrels in that hospital room. Root for her to grow up and know her dad and her mom. Sometimes all you can do is wear a T-shirt and hope, wear a T-shirt and pray, wear a T-shirt and root for the little girl who is fighting so hard for today. Instead, they wear red T-shirts that testify “We are LydiaStrong,” as of Sunday.

The Boston Red Sox aren’t much concerned about that. Maybe Kimbrel will return to camp and maybe he won’t. He is not here because his daughter, Lydia Joy, is in a hospital, recovering from her third heart surgery.

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