Erik Tolman’s big-league arrival comes with a visual you can’t miss: the lefty’s upper-90s heat, and the black brace that climbs to the middle of his calf.
That brace is part of a story that goes way beyond velocity.
Tolman was on the comeback trail in 2023 after a second Tommy John surgery when everything changed. He jumped over a baseline like he had done countless times before, but this time his leg caught in the turf.
He tried to brace himself, and his knee gave out badly. Tolman suffered a catastrophic injury, fully blowing out his knee and tearing his hamstring off the bone.
At one point, doctors thought they might have to amputate the leg. That never happened.
During the recovery, Tolman kept telling himself, “it could always be worse”. With surgeries and time, the knee and hamstring eventually healed.
The damage that didn’t go away was to his peroneal nerve. Tolman lost all feeling in his foot, developed foot drop, and now has to wear an ankle-foot orthosis, or AFO, when he’s doing physical activity. That’s the brace he wears on the mound.
Tolman and I talked about that before our clubhouse conversation, and I showed him my own brace. Like him, I wear an AFO after surgery to remove a tumor that affected my peroneal nerve. He immediately wanted to talk about the brace itself, and how he found the right one.
He started by shopping on Amazon for cheaper options, then, after talking with his trainer, went to the Hanger Clinic to get fitted for something that worked. I went through the same place myself, after my first brace was too big and bulky and we had to downsize. Tolman said he has about five braces at home, and none of them are the one he uses in games.
Finding the right AFO, he said, is a lot like finding the right pitching mechanics. It takes trial and error until something finally fits.
For Tolman, it fits now. The 27-year-old says the brace and the foot drop do not affect him mechanically, and he believes the time away from the mound actually helped sharpen his delivery. He pointed to his college mechanics and said they’re better now, by a wide margin.
There was a stretch when a return to baseball, or even walking, didn’t seem guaranteed. Once he realized pitching again was possible, he committed fully. On a New Year’s Day drive from California to Arizona, he made up his mind: “If I can pitch on it, I can do this”.
That decision carried him back to the majors in 2025, after he moved from Low-A to Double-A in a season. His left arm has always been loud, and the stuff remained electric, but command issues eventually pushed him into the bullpen this year. Before his call-up, he was a steady presence in Rochester, overpowering hitters while still battling the strike zone.
Now in the big leagues, he has made some adjustments and is attacking the zone. That showed up last night in a huge spot, when he was summoned in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and nobody out.
He struck out a hitter, got a double play, and escaped the inning. Tolman then returned for the ninth and struck out the side to record his first career save.
That finish felt a long way off from the darkest parts of the journey. After the second Tommy John surgery, Tolman said he considered retiring before being talked out of it.
Then came the knee injury that forced him to relearn how to walk. He still can’t move his foot side to side, something I can relate to.
But he kept going. He got back on the mound, and now the fastball jumps out of his hand and the changeup falls off the table. He may not be able to feel the top of his foot, but hitters sure felt his stuff last night.
For people living with drop foot and wearing an AFO, Tolman’s path hits home. The trips to get a brace fitted just right, the trial and error, the frustration - it’s all part of it. And now he’s doing it on a big-league mound, throwing harder than ever and saving games.
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