Left-hander Paul Maholm played some catch for the fifth time in six days Wednesday with the hope that he can throw off the mound in a light bullpen session sometime this weekend.
He’s eligible to come off the DL Monday and the earliest he would return to the mound is when his rotation spot comes up again Aug. 10 against Miami. But even then, he would have been off for 20 days.
“We’ll see how he throws this weekend on the side and see what he needs after that,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “My thinking is he may need (to throw) some BP or a sim(ulated) game, or maybe even a couple of innings in a rehab start before we run him back out there to face live major league hitters.”
Maholm has been nursing a sprained left wrist, which he initially hurt batting in a July 10 start in Miami. It flared up again as he threw warm-up pitches before the fourth inning of his July 20 start in Chicago.
“I’m not a very good DL patient so I’m going to push it,” Maholm said. “But I also understand the team is playing well and I don’t want to go out there and not be 100 percent and have a setback. So my goal is going to be to get that rotation spot the next time around, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.”
