SAN DIEGO – Some 15 minutes after Freddie Freeman walked into the visitor's clubhouse Tuesday at Petco Park, the Braves first baseman was in uniform and hitting baseballs in the indoor batting cage.
He was as eager to get going and prepare for his return to the lineup as the Braves were to welcome him back.
Freeman will be reinstated from the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday and be in the lineup for the afternoon series-finale game against the Padres. It’s the first day he’s eligible to return after his second DL stint in a brief period, this one for an oblique strain.
He had been back for only 1 ½ weeks following his previous DL period of more than five weeks for a wrist injury.
“We’ve got a 12:40 (p.m. Pacific Time) start tomorrow, so we didn’t want to fly him in tomorrow,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “So he’s here today. He had a great game yesterday. Snit (Triple-A Gwinnett manager Brian Snitker) told me he’s swinging it good, feeling good.”
Freeman was 3-for-15 with two walks and seven strikeouts in four minor league injury-rehab games, including 2-for-3 with a double, two RBIs and two walks in his last game Monday for Gwinnett.
Freeman has played in only 76 of the Braves’ 119 games this season, after starting all 162 games in 2014 and setting a franchise record for minutes played.
Gonzalez was looking forward to putting together a lineup again with Freeman in the heart of it, and also looking ahead to adding recently acquired Cuban third baseman Hector Olivera at some point next week. Olivera continues his injury-rehab assignment from a strained hamstring.
“Hopefully (Freeman) will be in the lineup the rest of the way,” Gonzalez said. “It’s more difficult (for opponents) to navigate with him in there.”
Despite missing about one-third of the season to date, Freeman’s 14 homers was still 40 percent more than the next-highest total among Braves (Cameron Maybin’s 10) before Tuesday, and he led the team with a .500 slugging percentage and ranked third in RBIs (45).
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