Richards hopeful about alternate treatment

ANAHEIM — Garrett Richards’ decision to undergo stem-cell therapy in hopes of bypassing Tommy John surgery was summed up by the Angels’ starter in three words on Wednesday: “Why not, right?”

Richards, diagnosed with a high-grade tear of his ulnar collateral ligament a couple of weeks ago, believes he would’ve likely missed all of the 2017 season even if he had the procedure immediately. So he felt this was worth a shot.

“This is just a resource that I was going to exercise before surgery,” Richards said. “Some guys have had some success with it. The way my timetable lines up, as far as being back by 2018 if I did have surgery, is not any different if I have surgery now versus a couple of months from now. This is just something that was an option, and I decided to take it.”

Richards is undergoing the same treatment as his teammate, fellow starter Andrew Heaney, who will be evaluated in hopes of restarting a throwing program around the middle of June.

Stem-cell therapy involves extracting stem cells from a patient’s fat tissue or bone marrow — it was bone marrow for Richards and Heaney — then injecting it into the damaged UCL so that it heals. Richards will be evaluated in six weeks. If he does return this season, it probably won’t be until August, at the earliest. But this gives him a shot to pitch all of next season, too.

“I wasn’t in pain before I got hurt, before I started having these symptoms,” Richards …

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