{"id":6022,"date":"2017-05-18T15:06:31","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T19:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=6022"},"modified":"2017-05-18T15:06:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T19:06:31","slug":"freddie-freeman-injury-atlanta-shaken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/05\/18\/freddie-freeman-injury-atlanta-shaken\/","title":{"rendered":"Freddie Freeman Injury Leaves Atlanta Shaken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The heart of the Atlanta Braves sunk Wednesday night. After a dominating stretch, during which Atlanta had won four of its last five games and was closing in on\u00a0winning its fifth in six, superstar <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/freemfr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Freddie Freeman<\/a><\/strong> was plunked on the left wrist in the fifth inning, resulting in his removal from the game.<\/p>\n<p>X-Rays taken soon after were inconclusive, but a CT scan and an MRI on Thursday showed a fracture. Freeman will be out for at least two months. This is a major blow to the Braves \u2014 not only is Freeman one of the best offensive players in the National League, he&#8217;s also the backbone of a rebuilding team.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Braves?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Braves<\/a>\u2019 Freeman has a fractured left wrist. Expectation is that he will miss at least eight weeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/865273424100413442\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 18, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Freddie Freeman Injury Leaves Atlanta Shaken<\/h2>\n<h3>The End of a Run<\/h3>\n<p>Freeman has been arguably the best hitter in the National League so far this season. In fact, he&#8217;s been the best hitter in all of baseball since last June \u2014 he appears in the top four of all major offensive categories in that time frame, including first in home runs.<\/p>\n<p>Freeman was on pace for career-high stats across the board, plus a possible first time All-Star starting nod. Instead, he&#8217;s gone until the All-Star break, and Atlanta is left struggling with a\u00a0massive hole in the middle of their lineup.<\/p>\n<h3>Options at First Base<\/h3>\n<p>One of the problems the Braves never addressed for this season was a back-up option for Freeman. Now, that decision has come to the forefront.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta thought about using <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=howarry01,howard003rya&amp;search=Ryan+Howard&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Howard<\/a><\/strong> as a back-up first baseman, but his struggles in Triple-A Gwinnett prompted his release. Another option would be third baseman <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garciad01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adonis Garcia<\/a><\/strong>. However, he was just sidelined with Achilles tendinitis, although he will be back before Freeman is.<\/p>\n<p>The most likely internal option would be third base prospect <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruizri01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rio Ruiz<\/a><\/strong>. Ruiz has struggled mightily his entire minor league career against left-handed pitching, but the options are bare on the farm. With no true backup at the major league level, he seems the most likely fit.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the player they choose to fill in, they won&#8217;t come close to replicating Freeman&#8217;s production. The identity of the team is composed around his presence in the lineup. Without him, the Braves are a shell of themselves. Expect dark times for the Atlanta Braves the next two months.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/684307954\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 78.451178% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/684307954?et=uAUaNiC5QfRf6FxuqXN7Tw&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=-Rf0-DTNMOiFbVnWStpjQ_dppsEcpRJL9X1Aib4sR8U=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"466\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The heart of the Atlanta Braves sunk Wednesday night. After a dominating stretch, during which Atlanta had won four of its last five games and was closing in on\u00a0winning its fifth in six, superstar Freddie Freeman was plunked on the left wrist in the fifth inning, resulting in his removal from the game. X-Rays taken [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":6032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1071,35],"tags":[48,68,206,69],"class_list":["post-6022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-braves","category-mlb","category-news","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-baseball","tag-freddie-freeman","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}