SAN DIEGO – The Braves were awaiting an update Tuesday on the condition of pitcher Williams Perez, who left Monday’s game with what was preliminarily diagnosed as soreness in the triceps of his pitching arm.
“He’s going to see the doctor this afternoon,” Braves interim manager Brian Snitker said before batting practice Tuesday at Petco Park. “He’s still sore. We’ll know more after the doctor sees him again.
“It’s the same as last night, just kind of so sore they’re not even sure, I think, whether the manual checkup might show anything. So it still might be a day or so before we know the severity.”
The Braves hoped that Perez could avoid a stint on the 15-day disabled list, but the fact that he remained sore Tuesday might’ve lessened the chances of that. If he can’t make his next start, the most likely candidates to replace him could be Casey Kelly or John Gant.
Perez lasted 4 1/3 innings and was charged with seven hits, six runs and no walks with two strikeouts. The score was 1-1 before he gave up a three-run homer to Yangervis Solarte in the fourth inning, the last of three consecutive two-out hits allowed that inning.
He said there was some soreness that inning, but it wasn’t until after giving up a one-out single and RBI double in the fifth that he signaled to the bench to let Braves trainers know that he was having a problem.
“There was, I think, a lot of soreness there,” Snitker said. “I think he thought, I can make it through this, (then realized) no, I can’t make it through it…. Probably good that he brought us out and shut it down when he did.”
Head trainer Jeff Porter went to the mound to check on Perez, and soon they were walking to the dugout. Perez said the soreness was too close to his shoulder, which concerned him enough to decide not to push it anymore.
“Just a lot of soreness going on in that whole area,” Snitker said. “But it’s like Jeff said, everything is inflamed so much, it’s going to be hard until that calms down to really identify exactly, I think, a spot.”
