Dansby Swanson won’t be on the Braves’ road trip this week, and that reality seemed as tough for the Braves shortstop to deal with mentally as has been the physical pain in his left wrist.
Swanson was placed on the 10-day disabled list Friday for left wrist inflammation. He said he hasn’t required an injection and the team hopes rest and treatment will be enough to remedy the situation and prevent it from becoming a lingering issue.
“We just felt it was probably best to kind of take the rest now and clear everything out, and not have to be dealing with it the whole year,” Swanson said while updating his status Sunday morning. “Kind of nip it in the bud now. That was the thought process behind (the DL decision)….
“There’s definitely been improvement. Obviously when there’s irritation with anything and you’re constantly doing things, it’s going to not be able to get better as rapidly as if you just rest. Every athlete hates hearing that, but that’s just how it is.”
Neither the team nor Swanson mentioned his wrist being a problem until he was removed from Wednesday’s game at the Mets in the sixth inning. Manager Brian Snitker later said the wrist had bothered Swanson for some time, though Swanson refused to use it as an excuse for his recent offensive struggles after a blistering start to the season.
Swanson is 8-for-43 (.186) with no extra-base hits, one RBI and a .441 OPS in his past 11 games, after batting .352 (25-for-71) with 11 extra-base hits, 12 RBIs and a .964 OPS in his first 17 games. He had seven multi-strikeout games in his last 11 including each of three games before he was DL’d.
Asked Sunday if it was frustrating to deal with the wrist issue after getting off to such a strong start, Swanson said, “Yeah, it can be. The biggest thing is not even that, it’s not being able to be around the guys. Like, having to stay here for the road trip. That makes me so upset.
“I want to go so bad just to be able to hang out. I don’t know what I’m going to do here by myself.”
Then he joked, “I’ll FaceTme each of them in their lockers.”
The Braves were to take a charter flight to Tampa following their Sunday afternoon home-series finale against the Giants. They’ll spend an off day in St. Petersburg before a two-game series Tuesday and Wednesday against the Rays, then play a four-game series against the Marlins in Miami before traveling to Chicago for a May 14 games against the Cubs, a makeup of an April 15 game postponed due to rain and cold.
Swanson, whose DL stint was retroactive to Thursday, would be eligible to play as soon as May 13, the Sunday series finale at Miami. But there’s no timetable yet for his return.
“I haven’t really even looked that far in advance,” he said. “I’m trying to just stay with the mindset of living right now and just trying to get everything better, then whenever I’m back, I’m back.”
