MIAMI – With a week left in the season, the Braves’ games don’t count for much at this point. The fact that Freddie Freeman is choosing to play in them anyway, with a painful wrist, has not gone unnoticed by teammates.
And not just playing, but excelling. Freeman had three hits and homered for the second consecutive game in Friday’s 12-11 loss to the Marlins, when the Braves’ rally from an 11-4 deficit fell short and they lost for the second time in seven games.
“If your three-hole hitter and first baseman is going out there every day and wanting to play, and we know we’re going home at the end of the year, that should send a message right there,” Braves center fielder Michael Bourn said after Friday’s game. “He shouldn’t have to say anything else. That speaks for itself. Everybody in here knows he’s injured, and he’s still going out there and battling.
“We really have nothing to play for but pride; we’re not going to the playoffs. That says a lot about him.”
Freeman, who played all 162 games in the 2014 season, spent 6 ½ weeks on the disabled list this season in June and July with a sprain and bone bruise in the wrist, which multiple injections didn’t do much to heal. Soon after returning from another 15-day DL stint for an oblique strain, the wrist flared again.
It worsened recently, but Freeman has opted to wait until after the season to get another MRI and see whether anything needs to be done or if rest alone will take care of the problem. In the meantime, he said he will play the rest of the way, as long as it’s possible to manage the pain. He has ice strapped to his hand and wrist after every game, and has skipped batting practice in recent days in an effort to limit the aggravation of the injury.
He was 9-for-22 (.409) with three doubles, two homers and 10 RBIs in his past eight games before Saturday, with four walks and a .500 OBP.
His three-hit game Saturday was the 65th of his career, which ranked Freeman second in the majors during that period going back to his rookie season of 2011. The Cubs’ Starlin Castro, with 68, was the only player with more three-hit games in that period.
Freeman was out of the lineup Wednesday at New York due to the wrist injury, but had a pinch-hit two-run double in the seventh inning to put the Braves ahead 3-2, then a three-run homer in the ninth for a 6-3 win.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Freeman was only the second player in Braves franchise history – at least since RBIs became an official statistic in 1920 – to come off the bench and have at least five RBIs in a game. The other was Tyler Houston, who did it against the Cubs on May 20, 1996.
