SARASOTA, Fla. – After getting two hits against his former Baltimore team Thursday, Braves right fielder Nick Markakis stayed back at camp Friday to get more at-bats in a minor league game rather than accompany the Braves on a two-hour trip for another game against the Orioles.
“Waiting for a report,” said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, referring to an update on Markakis from the minor league game. “I thought his at-bats (Thursday) were really, really good. It’s just a matter of getting the timing right.”
Markakis missed much of spring training while completing a four-month recovery from neck surgery for a herniated disk. He had two hits in his spring debut March 23, then went 0-for-16 in his next five games. He snapped that skid with a 2-for-3 game Thursday against the team he spent nine seasons with before signing with the Braves in December.
Before the game Thursday, Markakis said he was 95 percent sure that he’d be ready for opening day Monday. Gonzalez said all parties agreed that Markakis would be better off Friday stayin back and getting two or three times as many at-bats in a minor league game by leading off every inning, the same thing veteran Jonny Gomes did once last week.
“We talked about it, Seitz (hitting coach Kevin Seitzer) and I talked about it — leave him back there to get five, six, seven at-bats,” Gonzalez said, “and he’ll get two or three (in Saturday’s Grapefruit League finale). If everything goes good — and I wouldn’t suspect it wouldn’t – he’ll go with us” to Miami for the season-opening series.
The Braves face the Orioles for the third consecutive game Saturday, and Markakis will have another chance to see many of his good friends and longtime former teammates, as well as Baltimore manager Buck Showalter, one of the Woodstock High School graduate’s biggest fans.
“You always miss him, the human being as much as the player, and that’s saying a lot because he’s a good player,” Showalter told reporters Thursday. “He got a great contract in a great place that really fits for him, and so I’m happy for him and his family….
“He’s a player that played for a team that I managed, but he was more than that. He’s a good human being and a good teammate, and we miss him. That’s kind of the coldness of the reality of the way it works. They did something. They wanted him, and they were able to do what they needed to do, what nobody else in baseball, not just the Orioles, could do. Hats off to Atlanta.”
