The Braves got a scare when slugger Freddie Freeman was hit above the right elbow by a CC Sabathia pitch in the third inning of Wednesday’s loss against the Yankees and left the game one inning later.
Though his triceps was painful and swollen -- “It’s dead,” as Freeman put it -- and there was an imprint of a baseball on the muscle, Freeman apparently avoided significant injury and hoped to play Thursday at Milwaukee.
“I did this in Houston, I think six or seven years ago – I got hit by a pitch in my elbow and I played the next day in a day game,” Freeman said. “So that’s what I’m kind of hoping for here.
“I still can’t really lift it up or do anything that I need to do to play tomorrow, but I’m hoping the compression and a couple more (rounds of) ice, and I’ve got (electrical stimulation machine) coming to my room tonight -- so hopefully all that will make (the swelling) get out.”
He declined to have the arm X-rayed, saying he could tell it was only sore, not broken.
“He’s fine. Just bruised,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “It got his triceps. We’ll see how he is tomorrow. ... He wasn’t able to swing. It was good that he got out of there and started getting his treatment.”
Freeman was hit by a 91-mph pitch from left-hander Sabathia with one out in the third inning. He winced and clearly was in pain as he moved his arm slowly to loosen it up before going to first base.
He stayed in the game for the remainder of the inning, including the Yankees’ three outs in bottom of the third, but Freeman was replaced by Charlie Culberson at first base when the Braves went back on the field in the bottom of the fourth. During the fourth inning he tested the arm to see if he’d be able to hit.
“I went down to the cage and tried to swing and pretty much topped the ball off the tee,” he said. “I couldn’t really extend the arm going through the zone, I had no strength, nothing. It just swelled up. It looks like a baseball on my triceps right now. I tried to give it a shot but I just couldn’t do it.”
Freeman, the National League leader in All-Star fan voting, missed nearly two months of the 2017 season with a fractured left wrist after he was hit by a pitch from Blue Jays lefty Aaron Loup.
He was hit in almost the exact spot in his wrist by a pitch from Phillies lefty Hoby Milner on April 18 and left the game, but X-rays were negative and Freeman insisted on playing the next day, going 2-for-3 with two singles and a sacrifice fly in a win against the Phillies.
“Two strikes, lefty, I’ve got to stay in there with the slider,” Freeman said of his hit-by-pitch injuries. “That’s usually where I get hit most of the time, lefty on lefty with a couple of strikes, because you don’t want to bail on sliders. Luckily it didn’t hit my hand. I’ll take the elbow and a little soreness.
“As long as I have the strength in my arm tomorrow I can deal with pain.”
Freeman has started all 85 games this season for the division-leading Braves, who after three consecutive seasons with at least 90 losses sit atop the NL East standings with a 49-36 record.
When asked if he expected to play Freeman in Thursday’s series opener at Milwaukee, Snitker said, “As of right now, yes. If you ask him he’s going to say yes. But until we get there and see how it is. ... But like I say, it was probably good that we got him out of there and got started on the treatment.”
Despite going 10-for-62 (.161) with just one homer, 20 strikeouts and a .504 OPS in his past 15 games, Freeman still has a .308 average with 16 home runs, a .399 OBP that’s second-best in the NL, and a .530 slugging percentage that’s also among the league’s top 10.
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