10:15am: Freeman would likely miss between eight and 10 weeks if today’s tests reveal a fracture, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Bowman.
MAY 18, 9:44am: FanRag’s Jon Heyman writes that the Braves have already begun discussing potential replacement options, including options outside the organization.
MAY 17: Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman exited Wednesday’s game against the Blue Jays after being struck by a pitch on the left wrist, and David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that he’s headed for an MRI and a CT scan after initial X-rays of the wrist were inconclusive (Twitter links).
Freeman was struck on the left hand by a 94 mph fastball from Jays lefty Aaron Loup (video link). A significant Freeman injury would be a nightmare for the Braves, who have already struggled to a 16-21 record despite the fact that Freeman himself has been one of the best offensive players in baseball this season. Through 164 plate appearances, Freeman has posted a ludicrous .341/.461/.748 batting line with 14 home runs, 11 doubles and a triple.
[Related: Atlanta Braves depth chart]
MLB.com’s Mark Bowman tweets that the Braves are holding out hope that they’ll receive good news, but he adds that “the mood in the clubhouse wouldn’t have been described as optimistic.” Atlanta is relatively thin on options at first base in the minors and recently released veteran Ryan Howard, who had been playing with their Gwinnett affiliate. Current reserves on the 25-man roster include Emilio Bonifacio, Danny Santana and Johan Camargo — none of whom has much experience at first base. With few options in the upper minors, the Braves could also turn to a recently released veteran such as James Loney or Ben Paulsen in the event of a lengthy Freeman absence.
Wow. Tough break for Freeman and the bravos.
Sorry Altanta fans that Bluejays pitching has been so terrible this year. 7 hit batters in 3 games in unacceptable. And I dont know why our franchise player Jose Bautista would batflip when down by 4runs on a late solo hr.. Toronto has been painful to watch this year.
Its been pretty bad to watch. And Braves fans know what bad baseball looks like
Assuming that Freddie Freeman will be out for a long time. Then I do think MLB should suspend Aaron Loup for a couple of games even though he didn’t hit Freddie Freeman intentionally. There has to be consequence for hurting a guy even if it wasn’t done intentionally
Uh, yah. It’s called a runner goes to first base… That’s the consequence.
Suggesting that a pitcher gets suspended for accidentally hitting a batter is one of the dumbest things I have read on this site (and that’s saying A LOT). Should the batter get suspended too if he hits a line drive right back at the pitcher?
Thank you. Intent is everything. Accidents happen. Just because someone got hurt doesn’t mean someone needs to be punished. I feel as though there’s a statement to be made about reactions, perceptions, and society at-large here, but draw your own conclusion.
Please stop watching baseball!
The thing is right after Freeman was hit and we all assume that it was accidental. Shouldn’t Loup have went to Freeman and apologize for breaking his hand potentially.
No… It’s part of the game. Everyone that plays understands it. Go to first base and move on.
It sucks that he got hurt, but it happens. Luckily, the Braves suck anyways, so any short term absence this year won’t make a difference. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into one of those long term lingering issues.
No not during nor should he need to as the pitch wasn’t intentional and Freeman kind of rolled into it. Although, baseball is a small fraternity and he probably reached out to Freeman after the game. You don’t suspend or fine a guy, because those are simply the risks of playing the game. Sadly it’s just a crappy result. You also don’t expect a guy to apologize while competing, because they’ve been conditioned not to. There’s not really any assuming that needs to be done here as to whether it was intentional or not.
I can’t tell if sportsfan is being serious or parodying current culture.
Ok, we may suck, but the guy that got hit was the franchise and in the middle of a MVP race. Now we have nothing to watch until next April.
Still have two guys hitting over .300 that and have written off due to contracts that could lead to an interesting July.
You cannot suspend a guy for accidentally hitting a batter. It is a part of baseball. Every pitcher misses his spot sometimes & sometimes they miss it badly. Some pitchers don’t have control. It sucks for Freeman & the Braves if he is out for a lengthy time, but that doesn’t mean Loup should be suspended. Suspending pitchers for accidentally hitting batters would lead to far too many undeserved suspensions
You’re kidding right
Yeah, pitchers should be fined for each ball out of the strike zone too. It was an accident, life long Braves fan, but WOW.
That would be absolutely ridiculous. A ball slips out of your hand and you should be suspended? The MLB would get mocked over and over again if they did such a thing
“Sportsfan”
You can tell, Bautista fancies himself quite the player. Honestly am disgusted every time I have to see him.
he’s a horrible person on the field, pretty much sums up the blue jays
Yeah he is a huge d**k… i loved the braves commentator was like “Bautista remembered Odor and decided to keep running”
Or he decided a guy with a .681 ops wasn’t worth his time
cuz bautista’s 706 ops (as an OFer) should be looking down on anyone…
I meant career but I know it was a stupid decision by him. I’m pretty sure he apologized to Suzuki after anyways and for some reason the beaches cleared
Seems like there might now be some bad blood. Hopefully that doesn’t affect tomorrow’s game.
Playing Bonifacio and his weak stick at 1B for any significant period of time would literally be adding insult to injury.
Obviously Freeman wasn’t going to keep up with his current pace and end the season hitting roughly 55-60 HR’s, but still it would have been nice to see him prove all the naysayers wrong that touted him as only ever being an 15-20 HR and .280 hitter..
I really wanted him to show up those who doubted Freeman was worth that new contract he had signed a little while back. Several scouts, analysts, and fans alike all clamored that Heyward deserved the money and by giving it to Freeman the Braves were making a huge mistake.
Since about the midway point last season, Freeman was really and truly just hitting his stride as an all-world first-baseman. Heck, he has even stole a few bases this year for good measure..lol…If it wasn’t for Trout and Harper getting off to such excellent starts, Freeman very well could be getting the recognition he truly deserves.
I sincerely just hope this wrist injury does not cost him a ton of time on what looked like what was going to be one of the best seasons we have seen from ANY 1B’man in quite some time. Unfortunately though, even if it is a fairly minor injury, it will really take him awhile to get ALL of his strength back in his wrist…
What a major hit, and it is so unfortunate that this injury had to hit such an amazing ball player and an even better man in THE Freddie Freeman!!
“still it would have been nice to see him prove all the naysayers wrong that touted him as only ever being an 15-20 HR and .280 hitter..”
didn’t watch much baseball in 2016, huh pal?
Not a matter of showing up anyone. Prior to All Star game last year, he was not showing $20MM a year player stats. Glad he has come around, but just showing he is fulfilling the contract.
I have never met anyone that has thought Freeman was a 15-20 homer 280 bat. Everyone knows he has MVP potential. He is one of the best players in baseball.
I am not arguing his potential, I love the kid. Just saying, prior to Kemp acquisition timeframe, he wasn’t exactly playing up to his potential.
No doubt..kid rakes. That’s why he got the extension and not the most overrated player in MLB “Jason Heyward the 180 million defensive replacement”
JUICEMANE?
@Bravesfan88 “Obviously”…..
My mom is bummed…….and probably a little ticked off. She’s a big Freddie fan.
Bat flips can get you fat lips
Late slides can too. Rougned Odor showed him that
And punches get you swept in the ALDS
Put Swanson at first, he can’t play as
“ss” stupid autocorrect
Top-5 in MLB in errors…
As a jays fan, I understand the braves frustrations. 7 hbu in 3 games, but. One of them intentional. I was pleased with how they pegged Travis low and then moved on, settled simply and between the lines.
As for pillar, he should be suspended.
Bautista, inflammatory gestures but for once he was very apologetic to Kurt behind the plate. He realized what he done, so hopefully there won’t be any more beanballs from either team tonight, intentional or not. Braves played well this series
I sense another Kelly Johnson reunion is about to happen.
GOOD CALL. Love it.
I’d use Flowers at 1st and Suzuki to catcher for the time being and see how that plays out. I feel so badly for Freeman, he was really tearing it up and he was really leading the club along with Kemp, Markakis, and Phillips.
I actually thought of Flowers as a temporary option too. They could also call Lane Adams back up (doing very well in AAA) and move Markakis to firstbase.
I just don’t see the braves making a significant move even if Freddie was going to be out the rest of the year. You can’t replace his bat and the braves aren’t likely to go anywhere even if Freeman was healthy. I doubt that they give up decent prospects for anyone.
Not a bad idea, can Flowers play first? Rocker have any experience there? Hell bring Frenchy down from whatever booth he is in.
Man, we really could have used Sean Rodriguez.
How do we have ‘a top rated farm system’ but don’t have a single prospect that can hit. Besides Albeis, there’s a ton of arms and no hitters down the pipeline. Is there truly any offense on the rise in the minors?
Acuna, Riley, A.Jackson, demeritte and maitan
That is interesting to think about. We definitely don’t have many elite bats by any means and in our top 30 only a couple are doing well. with only 2 guys really close to being MLB ready. Again … close… but not there quite yet.. That said, we don’t really have any good 1B prospects anywhere in the minors. We could bring up Ruiz and let him play 1st….? I definitely don’t think we should trade for a 1b, and out of the options listed, I’d go get loney. and try to pay as little as possible for him. But I prefer just staying with what we got and save the money. Our team isn’t gonna make the playoffs anyways, so don’t waste money today for a short term fix.
There are a multitude of guys in the minors that can hit for the Braves, They unfortunately however aren’t quite ready for the bigs. You really need to look at how many young (many 20 and under) talented players they have in the organization. It isn’t that the Braves position players are lacking, it is mainly a factor that they are out shined by the multitude of highly thought of pitching prospects. There are 8 guys in the MLB prospects top 100 list (5 pitchers and 3 position players). Albies and Demeritte both in top 10 list for 2nd base (Swanson was for ss before his rookie eligibility expired to take him off the list). Austin Riley is on the top 10 list for thirdbasemen, Ronald Acuna MIGHT end up on the top 10 list for outfielders at midseason if he stays hot (19 year old kid recently promoted to AA and hitting .329/.388/.544 over the course of 37 minor league games, 5 doubles, 6 triples, 5 homers and 22 steals already). Alex Jackson has started hitting again since coming to the Braves organization from the Mariners (and swapping back to catching) hitting .305/.364/.583 with 12 doubles, 10 homers in 38 games with the High A Florida Fire Frogs. Jackson is the #23 prospect for the team (to give you an idea of how deep it is)..
If you want a strict firstbaseman though the Braves probably don’t have a true prospect at the position. There are retreads playing first in AAA. The best (semi-)prospect at first in AA is lefty swinging Carlos Franco who has already banged out 10 homers at the notoriously pitcher friendly Mississippi home park. He is however already 25 years old and not on the 40 man roster. I don’t expect the Braves to call him up.
They could probably get Chris Carter for an inconsequential minor leaguer like Keith Curcio.
Wouldn’t mind seeing them pick Richie Shaffer or Christian Walker out of their respective AAA teams. Both mashing.
Walker was a guy we already had and let go….. blah
No,Yanks aren’t going to trade Carter!
I saw a site mention the braves should go after one of Houston’s Blocked 1B… Not a bad idea actually…
I really like Jon Singleton, who’s not on the 40-man and wouldn’t take a lot to get, he never really had a full chance in the majors
the blue jays classic “I’m just competitive” excuse is getting old. they are a cocky team and begin fights over nothing, and then the fans act shocked when other fans don’t like them
I was just daydreaming the other day about framing the Odor punch on Bautista. Not sure that there’s been a player I’ve disliked more ever.
Freeman had an excess value to the Braves of $133.5 Million. He MAY never play again at this year’s performance level. Pretty big loss because the Blue Jays were upset at being beaten badly. There needs to be some payback and Pillar should be the beneficiary.
Loup is the Toronto enforcer. He has hit four batters in 16 innings this year. He is not wild because he has only one WP in 2017. Anyone who thinks hitting Freeman was an accident is a reality denier. If Pillar and Smoak do not take one each in the ear tonight, the Braves are a bunch of losers. Castro took one in the face after three HRs the other night with no retaliation. The Braves are getting a reputation of being afraid to fight back.
The video shows clearly Loup altering his delivery by stepping directly at Freeman, Clearly intentional. Tulowitsky needs to get one in the head as well if he has the courage to play tonight. Why hasn’t Loup been arrested for attempted murder?
They should definitely arrest him and make him apologize.
Well backatit Freddie freeman disagrees with you. If you actually think it was on purpose you need to get your head checked
“Freeman made it clear there was no reason to even speculate about whether Loup was doing anything more than just trying to throw an inside pitch.
“There was no intent,” Freeman said. “He was just trying to get me out. The best possible way to get me out is to pitch me inside. I’ll be the first to tell you that. He was just trying to do his job.”
–MLB.com
What do you have to say to that, Mr. Conspiracy Theory?
I hate the blue jays “we are just competitive” excuse everytime they do something wrong, kevin Pillar uses homophobic slurs, and then says he just competitive, when in reality, he’s just a D-bag
this is nuts. this is sports, not a church hall. things get said out of anger and if it’s just homophobic be grateful it wasn’t anything worse. this culture of everything being offensive is stupid grow up. not one commenter on this site can say with any kind of truth that words like that haven’t slipped out that’d offend someone somewhere……..again it’s sports braves sucked last year they’ll be better this year and next year contenders…..im a jays fan and saw it for 15 years upper mediocrity and disappointment. join the club and enjoy the ride
As I stated earlier in this thread I don’t REALLY expect the Braves to make any significant deal BUT if they did then perhaps one along the lines of acquiring David Freese from the Pirates (if they want to sell him soon). That way if Freeman is able to return somewhat sooner than most fear then at least you can move Freese across the diamond to thirdbase where he would most likely be an improvement over Garcia. Just a thought, and again I think it is highly unlikely.
Hopefully they blast Jose right in the head tonight
I really hate Jose Bautista, but you should never wish that on a player, no matter how much he makes us mad
And then they are known as the dirtiest team in sports…
I would really like to see the Braves get Ben Paulson — he grew up in Cobb, he’s good defensively and at the plate, and would come inexpensively. He’d be perfect as a temporary replacement for Freddie.