For all the nicknames circulating about Paul Janish after he retrieved a live bat from the infield Wednesday night – batman, bat whisperer - and the ensuing video craze, Braves trainers did have a serious question for Janish after the game.
They wanted to know if the bat had bitten him, over concern about rabies. Janish told them it hadn’t, and he didn’t get a shot, but he did ask for symptoms to look out for just in case.
“It was fine,” said Janish, who held the bat primarily in his glove, touching it with his right hand for just a second. “(The story) got blown up a little bit. It was funny.”
Janish said there were originally two bats on the field, who were ahem, “interlocked,” and one flew away. He was just trying to speed things up with the second one.
“C.J. (Chris Johnson) wasn’t going to touch it, and the umpire himself, Gary (Darling) was standoffish,” Janish said. “He was going to wait for the grounds crew or somebody to come out. I was like ‘Dude, let’s get this over with. We’ve already had an hour and a half rain delay.’”
Braves bat boy Will Kearney carried the bat off the field in a towel and eventually released it.
“I think we should be safe on the PETA front,” Janish said. “I think the situation was handled pretty humanely.”
Walden ready
Reliever Jordan Walden said he woke up Friday morning without evening thinking about his bruised right hand. “I’m good,” he said. “I don’t feel it anymore.” It has been nearly a week since he took a line drive off his pitching hand, and he was ready to pitch against the Nationals, as he’d predicted.
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