Freddie Freeman will not be back before the July 13-16 All-Star break, and he began treatment Thursday for pain in his wrist from the platelet-rich plasma injection he got eight days earlier to help heal his bone bruise.
“Day to day we don’t know how I’m going to respond (to the treatment),” Freeman said, “but I will not be back before the All-Star break. … The soreness is supposed to last a week to two weeks, and I’m at eight days … so hopefully in the next few days with the treatment I’m doing, (it) will speed up the process and I’ll be able to do stuff around July 8-10, and we’ll reassess from there.”
Freeman did, however, say the bone bruise is healing and that doctors are focusing on treating ligament inflammation caused by the injection. He began treatment Monday to reduce that inflammation, which he said prevents him from moving his wrist very much.
Freeman suffered the bone bruise June 13 after an awkward swing in the ninth inning at Citi Field. He immediately felt pain in his wrist and said he could barely lift a bat the next day. But he tried to play through the injury before ultimately leaving the game in the seventh inning against the Red Sox on June 17.
An MRI scan June 22 revealed no broken bones, but the Braves put Freeman on the 15-day disabled list the following day, retroactive to June 18.
“Just me playing every single day I thought, ‘Oh it’s just wrist pain. It’ll go away,’” Freeman said. “I don’t know if I hurt it more, but I didn’t help it out by playing (with the injury).”
Freeman said he’ll rehab his wrist during the All-Star break and is hopeful he’ll be available to play when the Braves return to action July 17 against the Cubs.
Entering Thursday’s game, the Braves were hitting .234 with a .604 OPS while averaging 2.2 runs in the 12 games without Freeman.
In the 12 games before Freeman was injured June 13, the Braves hit .290 with a .766 OPS while averaging 5.2 runs.
They trailed the Nationals by 2 1/2 games June 13; that number is now six.
“(Sitting out is) pretty painful, actually,” Freeman said. “When you play every single day for a year-and-half straight and all of a sudden you just physically can’t go out there and play, I was pretty bummed for a while. I’m just trying to focus on getting back to being healthy, but it’s definitely tough being at home watching the team on the road.”
