Dan Uggla has twice as many home runs and more than three times as many walks as last spring training, and Braves officials aren’t even knocking on wood anymore when they say they’re encouraged.
Uggla hit a two-run homer off Red Sox pitcher John Lackey in the fifth inning of the Braves’ 6-3 Grapefruit League win Saturday at Champion Stadium. It was the team-high fourth homer for Uggla, who was 1-for-3, drew his team-high 10th walk and lined out to left field on a Lackey breaking pitch.
“I love it,” Braves hitting coach Greg Walker said. “He’s starting to get results. You could see early on in camp he was doing things a lot better. And it’s not just running into breaking balls or anything else — he’s covering a lot of different kinds of pitches. We’re excited for him, we really are.”
Uggla is batting .262 with a .407 on-base percentage, .595 slugging percentage, and 14 strikeouts in 42 at-bats. A year ago, he hit .200 with a .268 OBP, .280 slugging percentage and 25 strikeouts in 75 at-bats at spring training, with two homers and three walks.
The second baseman had a career-worst season for the second season in a row, batting a majors-worst .179 with 22 homers and career-lows in RBIs (55), OBP (.309) and slugging (.362), and a franchise-record 171 strikeouts in 448 at-bats.
He added more than 10 pounds this offseason to get back to a comfortable weight and worked to get a flaw out of the lower-body movement in his hitting stance. Uggla has four homers in 30 plate appearances over his past 10 games.
Also, Andrelton Simmons was 2-for-4 and hit his first homer of spring training, and Freddie Freeman was 4-for-4 with a double and three singles to give him a .356 average.
Wood continues to impress: In his 18th inning pitched this spring, Alex Wood finally gave up his first earned run, and even in that inning the Braves' second-year left-hander continued to impress.
The Red Sox scored a run in the fourth inning, but Wood got out of the inning without further damage despite four singles in the inning. The Red Sox had a runner caught in a rundown after he was fooled by Wood’s pickoff move to first base, and he struck out top prospect Xander Bogaerts with two on to end the inning.
“That’s a maturity thing,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said of minimizing damage in the inning, something pitching coach Roger McDowell preaches. “(Wood) knows what he’s doing out there on the mound. He doesn’t give you many good pitches to hit. And they had a pretty good lineup out there. It was a good test for him at this time of the spring.”
He passed it with high marks, just as Wood (2-0) has passed every other test in five spring starts. He limited the Red Sox to six hits and one run in six innings, with no walks and four strikeouts. He has a 0.45 ERA with two walks and 16 strikeouts in 20 innings.
Gattis update: Before missing his fourth game since straining his right quadriceps, catcher Evan Gattis tested the leg by catching Ervin Santana's bullpen session and taking part in base-running drills. He got through it without incident.
“I didn’t have any problem at all catching,” he said. “And I didn’t think I would. I strained it running, so I think running is the biggest thing. I was going to shut it down if I felt anything (running). I didn’t feel anything, but I also wasn’t pushing it. I’ll probably do the same thing tomorrow, then probably try to play Monday.”
