DENVER – Freddie Freeman got stitches removed from his back Saturday afternoon, a day after getting a figurative monkey off his back with a two-hit game that included a triple.
The stitches in just below his neck had been there 11 days since Freeman had a mole removed. A biopsy of the mole showed cancerous cells, but doctors assured Freeman that they removed it before it could become melanoma.
His mother died from melanoma when Freeman was 10.
Freeman got the mole removed during the All-Star break and said the stitches had not affected his performance and said it wasn’t a factor in his slump during the first week after the break. Braves head trainer Jeff Porter removed the stitches in the training room of the visitor’s clubhouse at Coors Field before batting practice Saturday.
“I mean, it was just uncomfortable, but it didn’t really hurt or anything,” he said. “Just glad that they’re out, now I don’t have to worry about them opening up. Just kind of a sense of relief, really. But it wasn’t all that bad — the only time I could feel it was like, after I got out of the shower and I’d forget they were there and (scape over them with a towel). Other than that it was OK. But they’re out now.”
Before getting two hits in Friday’s 4-3 loss to the Rockies, he had been 2-for-27 (.074) with one home run, two walks and 15 strikeouts in seven games since the All-Star break. This after going 4-for-10 with two homers in the last three games before the break.
He followed up his two-hit game Friday with a triple and a hit-by-pitch in four plate appearances Saturday in an 8-4 loss.
“Just to make contact (was good),” Freeman said, smiling, when asked about Friday’s game including his first-inning triple. “It’s a year of starting off bad, I guess. I don’t know. Starting off halves that way. But it just felt good. It was an 0-0 change-up and I stayed on it and hit it hard to left-center. Obviously I had a really good (first) half hitting lefties, and it was nice to finally stay on a pitch (second half) and it hit it hard. Just little positive things.
“It’s obviously been a rough first seven games since the break, but if anything has proven this year it’s that if anything’s gone wrong, it’s clicked back in pretty quick, so hopefully that was the start of it clicking back in.”
The two-hit game Friday was also significant in that Freeman had struggled so much recently against the Rockies, a team he crushed for his first three-plus seasons.
He hit .340 with 19 extra-base hits including 11 home runs, 27 RBIs and a .748 slugging percentage in his first 27 games against the Rockies through June 10, 2014, but Freeman had been 1-for-33 with no extra-base hits or RBIs against him in his past nine games before Friday.
“It’s been the complete opposite the last couple of years (against the Rockies),” he said. “So hopefully it’s the start of going back.
“I feel good. I’ve felt good even though I haven’t been making contact and been striking out lately, I feel good up there. Everything feels great, it’s just one of those things where I go through those stretches where I seem to strike out a lot. But I feel good, so I know it’s going to come quick and I hope it was the start of something yesterday.”
