Jace Peterson is back in the lineup for Sunday’s series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He missed the first two games of the series with a left thumb injury that he said had been nagging at him for a couple of weeks.
“Just some discomfort, but as long as it’s not structural damage, I think we’re good to go,” he said a few hours before first pitch.
Peterson hit .237 in the two weeks before he rested his thumb on Friday. He had been hitting .274 before that.
He isn’t sure how he injured the thumb — perhaps on a dive, he said.
An X-ray revealed no structural damage and on Thursday he received a cortisone shot for the pain.
“Out of 100 percent I’m not really sure (how the thumb feels) until I start swinging again,” he said.
Peterson will return to the leadoff spot. Cameron Maybin topped the lineup in Peterson’s absence and collected five hits and two RBIs in nine at-bats.
After the game Saturday, manager Fredi Gonzalez said he’d considered leaving Maybin in the leadoff spot, but he didn’t want to bunch three lefty batters together in Peterson, Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis in the two, three and four holes.
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