FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Wednesday morning provided Ryan Kalish with a difficult reminder.

The 25-year-old outfielder showed up in the Red Sox clubhouse early on Wednesday, 15 days removed from the surgery to repair the labrum of his right (non-throwing) shoulder, a procedure that will prevent him from playing in games for (by his estimate) 4-6 months. That timetable suggests that the best-case scenario for the outfielder is to being playing in rehab games around the last days of May or first days of June.

For now, his limitations are apparent. He wears a bulky sling to support his right arm. He can't lift his shoulder over his head, making a simple act like putting on a jersey difficult.

He will not be taking part in baseball activities anytime soon. Starting Wednesday, he will be watching his teammates, their effortless progression through the initial stages of spring a reminder of what has been taken away.

It is painful.

"Showing up today was tough," Kalish acknowledged. "Obviously you're going to see baseball going on. I'm a little jealous. I don't know how I couldn't be. I want to be healthy like all these guys. I'm excited to watch everybody play and learn as much as I can, but realistically, I'm tired of this."

"This" is a early 24-month purgatory in which Kalish has been unable to be healthy on the field. He suffered a torn labrum in his left shoulder while making a diving catch for Triple-A Pawtucket in 2010. While rehabbing, he suffered a bulging disc in his neck. Neither injury healed on its own, resulting in his inability to play for most of 2010 and two surgeries at the conclusion of the season that effectively rendered him unable to build his strength through a normal offseason program. That, in turn, meant that his strength dwindled quickly after he finally returned to games last May. With his left shoulder weakened by the recovery from the surgery, Kalish believes he overcompensated with his right, contributing (or perhaps causing) the tear in his right shoulder labrum.

The injury was diagnosed at the conclusion of the season. Kalish consulted with Red Sox team doctors as well as Mets physician Dr. David Altchek. The same conclusion was reached by all evaluations -- surgery might be necessary one day, but in the short-term, there was a chance that rehab might suffice to allow him to have a complete, healthy offseason and to position him to play despite the long-term injury. 

"Between our docs and a second opinion, there was talk that, hey, we might have to do something eventually. With a normal offseason ahead, we all believed -- including myself -- that it would be a good thing to just do a normal offseason, get strong," said Kalish, who spent the winter working out in Boston. "I was feeling really good. I talked to some of you guys and said I was feeling really well, which I was. That was a little before swinging. If I didn't have to swing, I wouldn't have needed this surgery. I would have just lived my life. But playing baseball does that. At that point, I was feeling really good. But when I started swinging, I noticed being a little bit off and then eventually getting into front toss and moving off the tee, it just came to a head where it was too much."

Kalish started swinging every other day, doing tee work and taking some soft toss. The familiar sharp, stabbing pain when he made contact on pitches away that led to his inability to hit at the end of 2012 was once again present.

It wasn't a clear-cut case of Kalish requiring immediate surgery. Players can stay on the field with a torn labrum, just as Dwight Howard has done with the Lakers. But as he failed to progress, as he managed pain while swinging just every other day, he recognized that his body wasn't healing in a fashion that would allow him to resume a productive career as an everyday player.

"It just wasn't going to work," he said. "It was too much pain. It was too hard to play with. It wouldn't have been good for me or the team. It was just time to do it."

So the surgery was done, and now Kalish faces a third straight year of significant disruption due to injury. A player who looked like he was on the cusp of a permanent spot as a big league regular at the end of 2010 now has more modest goals than forcing his way back to the big leagues.

"I really just want to play again, whatever level," he said. "Obviously I want to play in the big leagues but at this point, I'm just tired of being hurt."

One of the frustrations for Kalish is that the timing of his surgeries relative to the initial injuries has been terrible. His neck surgery happened months into the rehab process. His left shoulder operation came more than seven months after that injury. His right shoulder labrum came almost four months after the end of the year, when the tear was diagnosed.

But Kalish does not feel that he received poor guidance. He simply resigns himself to the idea that he has had a series of frustrating injuries and that his body was too stubborn to heal on its own.

"Obviously the timing [of the surgeries] has been awful. I wish it could have been different," said Kalish. "But I've never had a clear-cut case of surgery where it's something that people haven't dealt with before and played with. Obviously, some people do better than others and my body didn't handle it as well as theirs. But it is what it is.

I'm hoping at this point this is all -- get them all out of the way and be good to go for the rest of my career," he continued. "I think this right one would have came along in a year or two anyway. I'm still relatively young. I've missed, obviously, a really severe amount of time now and I'm going to miss more. I guess, trying to keep perspective on it, it could be a lot worse. I have my health overall. Keeping it all in perspective -- I'm trying to."

But doing so is no easy task for Kalish. Once again, the talented young outfielder must bide his time.