Lingering soreness in his left thumb is beginning to look like it could affect Ender Inciarte’s once seemingly inevitable bid for a 200-hit season.
The Braves’ All-Star center fielder and leadoff man left Tuesday’s game against the Nationals after four innings with soreness in the thumb, which he initially injured on a slide at first base last week at Washington when he jammed it into the base while trying to avoid a tag.
Braves manager Brian Snitker said tests last week and Tuesday showed no structural damage to Inciarte’s thumb, and the Gold Glover missed only one game after the injury, then started the next five games before exiting early Tuesday. But he’s been playing with soreness that clearly has affected him at the plate.
Inciarte ranked third in the majors with a career-best 190 hits before Wednesday and needed 10 hits to become the fourth Brave to have a 200-hit season since the team moved to Atlanta in 1966 and the first to do it since Marquis Grissom had 207 in 1996. The Braves had 13 games left in 12 days to close the season, with no off-days and a doubleheader Monday at New York.
Inciarte was 12-for-31 (.387) with four extra-base hits, five walks, two strikeouts and a 1.085 OPS in his last seven games before the injury Sept. 12. But in five games since the injury, he’s 3-for-19 with no walks, three strikeouts and two double plays grounded into.
Lane Adams got the start in center field Wednesday, and Inciarte was scheduled to be checked out by Braves hand specialist and chief physical Gary Lourie.
“Ender’s sore. Gary will see him today and see what they think,” Snitker said. “But it was hurting him, he couldn’t really torque the bat on fastballs (Tuesday). We’ll just have to wait and see. ... (Tuesday) they X-rayed him or whatever, and it’s just a bruise, right now. They’ve got all kinds of stuff they can do for that, but we want Gary to look at him just to make sure.
“It’s still a result of that slide into first. It was improved there, and then it just kind of flared up on him again, where he had trouble torqueing the bat. So maybe a couple of days and everything calm down a little bit, and we can get him back out there.”
