A few Braves were out of the lineup for nothing more than scheduled rest Sunday, after playing virtually every day for months. But when Freddie Freeman left after the seventh inning of a 4-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants in the final regular-season home game, it was to get not rest but rehab.
Yes, the Braves’ star first baseman is having problems again with a bone spur in his right elbow. And with the Braves to open postseason play in 10 days, it has to be a concern even if they seem to be downplaying it.
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Freeman will skip the Braves’ two-game series at Kansas City on Tuesday and Wednesday and instead stay in Atlanta for four days of rest and rehabilitation, with the plan for him to join the team in New York for the Braves’ season-ending series against the Mets on Friday.
“He’s going to stay back, get treatment, meet us in New York,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “There’s no sense of going (to Kansas City) for two days. We’re just going to make sure that things get back right. If we were starting the playoffs tomorrow, he’d be in the lineup. But it’s just … we don’t need to push that.”
It was the second time in 10 days that Freeman left a game early because of pain from the bone spur. The National League RBI leader was 1-for-14 on the homestand, including 0-for-3 on Sunday. (His sixth-inning groundout scored Adeiny Hechavarría, who had tripled.) After being out of the lineup Saturday for a rest after Friday’s NL East-clinching win, Freeman said the elbow still bothered him and that he felt pain on consecutive swings in that sixth-inning at-bat.
“It’s obviously not ideal, but it responded pretty good with that offday last week,” he said. “So we’re going to hope four days off is going to do the real trick here, where I can have no problems going into the last weekend of the season and into the postseason. … Hopefully with this half offday (Sunday) and the next four, and then another half (day before the game) on Friday, be ready to go on Friday.”
Freeman didn’t miss a start after exiting a Sept. 13 game at Washington before the fourth inning, after which Snitker revealed for the first time that he has dealt with a bone spur for some time now but previously had been able to play through the discomfort.
Freeman said he has had it for about two years but that it had been something he could manage previously. He said it has ached at least the past couple of days, but no worse than it did 10 days ago. He didn’t use the issue as an excuse for a 2-for-26 slump with just one extra-base hit in his past nine games.
He hasn’t homered in 18 games since hitting two against the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 1, raising his career-best total to 38.
“I still feel all right,” he said. “Everyone deals with injuries. I’ve dealt with this one for a couple of years. But it is frustrating that it keeps popping up as quickly as it is right now. But I don’t think it’s affecting anything, and hopefully, these next four days will make it all go away, and I can clear my head and go out there and have a nice little series to end it and get ready for the playoffs.”
Freeman famously either has played through numerous injuries or returned earlier than expected from them, so the mere fact that he twice has exited games early in a span of 10 days says plenty about how much pain he’s been in.
There was also the tone in his voice and his wry smile when he answered a question about how quickly the pain returned after the Sept. 13 game and the treatment he received that night in D.C.
“Couple of days,” he said. “So let’s hope four days off does the trick for me.”
Rookie Austin Riley, who got the Saturday start at first base, is likely to fill in there during the Kansas City series, although Hechavarría, outfielder Nick Markakis and third catcher Francisco Cervelli can also play first. With Riley at third base Sunday in place of resting Josh Donaldson, Cervelli replaced Freeman for the final two innings Sunday.
Acuña’s 40-40 pursuit on hold
With the Braves having clinched their second consecutive NL East title Friday along with home-field advantage for the division series, fans’ attentions turned toward three things:
• Would Ronald Acuña Jr. get the three stolen bases necessary to make him just the fifth player — and the youngest — in MLB history with at least 40 homers (he has 41) and 40 stolen bases?
• Would Donaldson get three more homers and Freeman two more to make Atlanta just the fourth team in MLB history to have three players with at least 40 home runs and only the second team not aided by playing its home games at Coors Field?
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• Would St. Louis maintain its lead over Milwaukee and the Cubs to clinch the NL Central and a spot opposite the Braves in the division series?
The first of those pursuits was interrupted as Snitker rested Acuña and Donaldson on Sunday as well as second baseman Ozzie Albies, something the manager had planned to do with all the regulars for a day or two once the Braves clinched.
Donaldson started 103 consecutive games at third base before being out of the lineup Thursday and again Sunday, and Albies started 105 out of 106 games at second base before he was rested Saturday and Sunday, save for a pinch-hit appearance in the ninth inning Sunday (he singled).
Acuña was out of the lineup Sunday for the first time this month and the fourth time all season. Entering Sunday, he led the NL in games played (155), plate appearances (714) and at-bats (625), as well as runs (127), stolen bases (37), caught stealing (nine) and strikeouts (majors-leading 188).
Snitker said he expects to play his regular lineup — except the injured Freeman — again beginning Tuesday and that he was able to get enough rest for his regulars during this homestand. With the Braves off Monday and Thursday, it’s likely the other lineup regulars will play the rest of the way through Sunday’s season finale.
Snitker and veteran pitcher Dallas Keuchel said Sunday that winning 100 games was something that they and other Braves would like to do. The Braves are at 96 wins.
“We have to win four out of the last five,” said Keuchel, who was charged with six hits, three runs (two earned) and two walks with four strikeouts in six innings of Sunday’s loss. “It’s gonna be tough, but I’d like to personally get there (to 100 wins), and I know the other guys probably do, too.”
He added: “I think a couple of weeks ago we were still trying to lock up the division. But now it’s about rest, trying to get players healthier, get a blow here and there and try to make sure the starting pitching and bullpen is kind of lined up. Now it’s not about playing A-plus ball, it’s about getting into the playoffs healthy, and I think if we can play some B-plus ball that’ll get us to where we need to be to have a few off days after Sunday’s finale (at New York).”
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Acuña hit home runs Thursday against Philadelphia and Friday against the Giants, making him the second-youngest (he’s 21 until Dec. 18) ever to hit his 40th homer in a season, behind only Hall of Famer Mel Ott, who hit 42 as a 20-year-old in 1929.
The 40 steals no longer appear as likely as they did when he was on a base-stealing binge after the All-Star break. He has only three stolen bases in his past 15 games, including two in one game against Philadelphia.
Acuña needs three in the Braves’ final five games to get 40, and pitchers recently have paid more attention to him and kept him closer to first base with more pick-off throws and more pitch-outs to catchers, who practically are standing up before such pitches are thrown.
Snitker recalls his Yaz moment
There obviously was a lot going on for the Braves and Snitker during the past few days, but facing San Francisco rookie Mike Yastrzemski for the first time caused Snitker to pause and reflect on an unforgettable moment early in his managerial career.
Mike is the grandson of Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski, the Boston legend and Triple Crown winner. The late-blooming Giants rookie is also the son of the late Carl Yastrzemski Jr., who went by Mike and who played his first season of professional baseball with Snitker as his manager.
The Braves drafted Yastrzemski — the middle Yaz, if you will — in the third round of what was then the secondary phase of the 1984 January draft out of Florida State. He was 22, and his dad came down to spring training a couple of months later to see how his son was doing before the kid went off to begin his minor-league career at Class-A Durham.
Snitker was 29, in his third year as a manager and the second year managing the Braves’ Durham affiliate.
“Right before spring training ended, I’m in the Triple-A dugout in West Palm with Yaz,” Snitker said, smiling as he sat in the Braves’ dugout at SunTrust Park and recollected that morning. “We’re sitting there bullsh*tting, he’s smoking a cigarette, and I’m saying to myself, ‘I cannot believe I’m sitting here talking to friggin’ Carl Yastrzemski. You’ve gotta be sh*tting me.’
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“We were just talking. He was there because his son was getting ready to go out and play in Durham with me.”
“This kid,” Snitker said, nodding toward the Giants in the visitors’ dugout at SunTrust Park, “looks just like his dad.”
Carl Yastrzemski’s son Mike, or Carl Jr., played five minor-league seasons and reached Triple A with the White Sox organization but never reached the majors. He died at age 43 from a blood clot after having hip surgery.
Mike Yastrzemski, the Giants rookie, made his major-league debut at age 28 on May 25, two days after the Braves finished a series in San Francisco. He has 20 home runs, fourth among MLB rookies in that period and the most by a Giants rookie since Dave Kingman hit 29 in 1972.
Only three NL players had more road homers since the end of May than Yastrzemski’s 13 (one was Acuña, with 17 in that span).
Yastrzemski, who turned 29 in August, was a teammate of Dansby Swanson’s for one year at Vanderbilt when Swanson was a freshman and Yastrzemski was a senior, and he played all or part of seven minor-league seasons before reaching the big leagues.
Braves’ attendance increases
After drawing nearly 112,000 fans for the three-game weekend series against the Giants — including a sellout crowd of 40,899 on Saturday while Georgia was playing Notre Dame in nearby Athens — the Braves finished their home schedule with an attendance total of 2,655,100, their highest in more than a decade.
Attendance increased in each of the first three seasons at SunTrust Park in suburban Cobb County, and the 2.655 million figure marks the first time the Braves finished with 2.6 million since 2007, when they drew 2.74 million at larger Turner Field in downtown Atlanta.
Another positive trend was their performance in front of their largest crowds: The Braves’ win Saturday gave them a 12-5 record in sold-out home games this season, after they had an uncanny run of disappointing performances in home sellouts in 2018.
(Photo: Brett Davis / USA Today)
