Already sidelined three weeks with a badly bruised heel, Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson still has no timetable for a return to the field.
“It’s … a frustrating injury,” Swanson said Tuesday. “I’m doing everything I can to get back and be ready. I have no update on when that will be, but I’m doing everything in my power.”
Swanson hasn’t played since injuring his right heel on the base path during a July 23 game. On Tuesday, he described how it happened: “When I lunged for the (first base) bag, my back spike hit the ground first, and all of that force went up through my heel, and then my foot hit the bag.”
The heel has been much slower to heal than the Braves projected.
Swanson didn’t leave the game in which he suffered the injury, and he was a late scratch from the lineup the following day. Even then, the Braves thought he’d miss no more than a couple of days. And after putting him on the 10-day injured list, they thought he’d return as soon as the minimum time expired.
“I just don’t think any of us understood the extent (of) how bad I did hurt it,” Swanson said Tuesday. “I think we kind of downplayed it because I was ready to get back, but I think it had other plans.”
“I didn’t see this coming,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “We all kind of thought it was going to be probably overreacting a little bit to put him on the IL.”
Swanson thought he was making progress toward returning to the active roster before a setback about 10 days ago.
“I was definitely progressing and then hit a little speed bump and have been trying to take care of things ever since,” Swanson said. “It’s very much day to day. It’s hard to lay out a schedule when things will happen.”
As of Tuesday, Swanson said the heel is improving “marginally.”
“The rest and treatment makes a difference, but it’s just a matter of how fast,” he said. “It’s never fast enough. I’m just making sure I’m resting and staying off it as much as possible.
“If anyone has ever had a heel bone bruise, they’ll understand that when you walk around you feel it at all times.”
Snitker said he has “no idea” at this point of a timeline for Swanson’s return. “Just go day to day, and hopefully at some point … it turns really quick,” Snitker said.
Swanson has a .265 batting average, 17 home runs and 57 RBIs in 100 games this season.
“I hate (the injury) for him because he’s having a really, really solid year offensively and defensively,” Snitker said.
