Romy Gonzalez can finally “see the light at the end of the tunnel” after what he calls the worst offseason of his life.

“I started swinging last week, but today was my first day of flips, that was really good, and yeah, just kind of stacking days right now, getting closer,” Gonzalez told the Herald Saturday afternoon, after he worked out on the field at Fenway with his Boston Red Sox teammates.

The super-utility man, 29, slashed .300/.332/.486 over 89 games before the team flew to Tampa for a late-September series last year, and he suffered a left-shoulder injury. Gonzalez played through the remainder of the year, and after months of rehabbing throughout the offseason and early weeks of spring training, he underwent arthroscopic surgery in March and began the season on the injured list.

It’s certainly been a weird road back, watching chaos and upheaval unfold from a seat on the sidelines. Gonzalez isn’t traveling with the team, so he was in Boston when Red Sox principal owner John Henry, team president Sam Kennedy and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow flew to Baltimore and abruptly fired manager Alex Cora and several members of the coaching staff in late April.

Gonzalez was rehabbing at Fenway the following day, and was therefore able to say goodbye in person when the ousted personnel arrived to collect their belongings.

“It’s kind of tough, because I kind of revitalized my career with the staff that we had,” he said. “I have a lot of respect and love for all the guys that were let go. Not only great coaches, but great people.”

Gonzalez added that the “guys that came in are pretty good, too,” noting he enjoyed playing for now-interim Red Sox manager Chad Tracy in Triple-A Worcester, and had talked “quite a bit” about hitting with John Soteropulos, who was promoted from assistant to lead hitting coach after the firings.

As for the former manager and coaches, Gonzalez is confident “they’re going to land on their feet somewhere.”

“I feel like they’re all taking advantage of this time, spending time with the family,” he continued. “None of us have really had a summer ever, so I feel like they’re going to enjoy it. There’s a silver lining to everything.”

It was difficult for a long time to find his own silver lining, though. Gonzalez’s mental health suffered as he not only struggled through his offseason rehab, but to complete basic everyday tasks, including putting on a shirt, doing his hair, and driving.

“Just the most random things,” Gonzalez said. “Every time I would turn (my head), I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh this is terrible.’”

“It sucked. It was the worst offseason I’ve ever had. It was challenging, very mentally challenging,” he continued. “Our identity gets tied up into being a baseball player, and I feel my identity is being a baseball player, so the one thing that I really enjoy doing, and I wasn’t able to do it.”

Gonzalez went on walks and started reading self-help books, including one recommended to him by 2025 teammate Alex Bregman. He leaned on friends and family, and tried to remind himself, “These things take time.”

But he couldn’t help but worry. The shoulder wasn’t improving with the offseason rehab, nor with his first-ever platelet-rich plasma injection (PRP), which he received in January. PRP typically takes full effect within four to six weeks, so he waited it out. But he knew it wasn’t accelerating his healing the way it has for other players.

“It just felt the same, like I was the same,” Gonzalez said. “I didn’t really feel too much relief, if any, honestly. After a couple weeks I was like, I don’t really see this getting any better.”

“I was working so hard to get better, and I’m not getting results,” he said. “I know shoulders are really stingy and I had my right one repaired in 2023, but I hurt it a long time ago in college and I played through it for a long time, and I got to a point where it really didn’t bother me, so I was kind of hoping for that same outcome with the left shoulder.”

As the injury dragged on throughout the first weeks of spring training, Gonzalez wondered if all the examinations and tests had somehow failed to find the root cause.

“I’m like, something has to be wrong,” he said. “Because I can play hurt. You can play hurt, but playing injured is a totally different thing. And I was already at that point where I was injured, so I knew that something was wrong, but the scans kept coming back negative.”

Gonzalez flew to Alabama in early March to see renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Dugas, who performed his 2023 shoulder surgery.

“We got the MRI, and he’s like, ‘Man, I really don’t see anything,’ “ Gonzalez recalled of the visit to Birmingham’s Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Center. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, let’s just go in there and scope it.’ … I had a bunch of inflammation in there.”

Dugas ultimately performed a left shoulder arthroscopic debridement, which Gonzalez called “best-case scenario.” The alternative would’ve been a labral repair, which would’ve cost him most, if not all of the season.

Once the season started Gonzalez tried to support his teammates from afar without overstepping.

“It’s like Monday-morning quarterback, obviously after the game you can dissect everything and you have the perfect opinion,” he said. “It’s been nice to kind of try to help in some way, but I try to stay out of the way unless they ask me.”

Gonzalez’s progression is broken up into weeklong blocks. The current schedule has him seeing overhand pitching from coaches or the machine at the end of next week.

“I’m hoping to be back in games in a month, whether that be rehab or up here,” Gonzalez said with a smile. “It’s been a whirlwind so far, for sure. I’m sure it’s been for everyone, considering everything that’s happened this year.

“But I feel like our best baseball is in front of us, and it’s going to be an exciting summer.”

Red Sox injury updates

Ace Garrett Crochet (shoulder) threw on the field Saturday, and is lined up for a live batting practice on Tuesday. The star southpaw may throw a second live BP before going on a rehab assignment.

Interim manager Chad Tracy said pregame Saturday that outfielder Roman Anthony (hand) is “running, sprint volume, shagging, throwing, everything that he can do to make sure his body elsewhere– all the rest of his body, is ready to go, and we just got to wait on the hand.”

Left-handed reliever Danny Coulombe (neck) could be activated Sunday.

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