For a team that wasn’t at full strength the first month of the season, the Braves are starting to get healthy. Brian McCann is first and foremost on that list, nearing his return from shoulder surgery.
McCann caught back-to-back games on his minor league rehabilitation assignment Wednesday in Single-A Rome and Thursday in Triple-A Gwinnett. He’s shown the Braves he’s ready behind the plate, and he homered in two of his past three games. The plan is for him to finish the weekend in Gwinnett at DH on Friday, catch Saturday, and then get an at-bat or two Sunday before joining the Braves to travel to Cincinnati.
If all goes well this weekend, McCann will be activated Monday.
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez watched on TV as McCann caught the first three innings for Gwinnett on Thursday and liked what he saw, as did his predecessor Bobby Cox, now a team consultant who watched McCann catch in Rome on Wednesday.
“(Cox) said he looks great,” Gonzalez said. “He told me if something happened to one of our catchers he could cut the rehab short and come up. He felt that good.”
Brandon Beachy has thrown four rounds of live batting practice with two to go before he heads out on a minor league rehabilitation, likely toward the end of the Braves’ coming three-city trip. Beachy threw live batting practice Friday and wasn’t as sharp as in his previous two, but continues to feel good physically.
“It came out the best (in his previous session), so there’s some residual effects from that,” said Beachy, who has increased to 10 minutes his past two sessions. “I can’t expect to have it every time right now. I’m healthy, so it’s another check off the list. Getting closer.”
Beachy is aiming to return around the year anniversary of his elbow-reconstruction surgery, which is June 21.
“His fastball is still really super heavy,” said Tyler Pastornicky, who stood in against Beachy each of his last three sessions. “I don’t think he had his command of his pitches like he wanted to (Friday), but the action on the pitches was what you want to see. If he can get the command like he’s had the last two times, wow. He’ll be ready to go.”
Jonny Venters started playing catch this week and expects to get his first work off the mound next week as he ramps up his throwing program. Venters got a platelet-rich plasma injection April 3 in an attempt to avoid a second elbow surgery. He’s hoping to return by the end of the month.
Johnson appeals: It might seem a strange request, but Braves third baseman Chris Johnson is filing an appeal with Major League Baseball to try to get a scoring decision changed so that he's charged with an error.
That’s because Johnson’s play on a Denard Span ground ball in the second inning Thursday led to two runs in a 3-1 loss to the Nationals. And after a scoring change by the Braves official scorer, the play cost Kris Medlen two earned runs.
“It’s ridiculous,” Johnson said. “The guy hit a ball off the end of the bat. That’s an easy play. If he doesn’t think I can make that play, he’s crazy.”
The scorer initially ruled it an error, but changed his mind later in the game. Johnson was upset when he noticed it had been changed to a hit on the scoreboard.
“Chris was adamant when he came in here,” Gonzalez said Friday in the Braves’ dugout. “I’ve never heard a major league player come up and say ‘You tell me who I need to talk to about changing that hit to an error. Tell me who.’”
Military surprise: Last year during spring training, Braves third-base coach Brian Snitker surprised a young soldier from Conyers, a friend of the family, with a visit to the Braves' dugout shortly before he deployed to Afghanistan. Snitker introduced him to Dale Murphy and Bobby Cox.
On Friday night before the Braves played the Mets, that soldier — Lt. Eric Bagley — surprised Snitker back. Four months after returning from his deployment, he came to Turner Field to present Snitker with an American flag that he and his unit carried on their armored truck during more than 150 missions in southern Afghanistan.
“Just to say thank you to Mr. Snitker,” said Bagley, 25, now stationed at Fort Stewart in Savannah. “The level of support they showed my family — and from what I’ve heard the support they’ve showed the military in general — I was very touched by it.”
Snitker didn’t know Bagley was coming to the game. Gonzalez got Snitker and the coaches onto the field about an hour before the game, where Bagley was waiting in his dress blues with an American flag folded and encased in glass.
“That’s the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten,” Snitker said.
Snitker’s wife, Ronnie, taught at Craig Elementary in Lawrenceville with Bagley’s mother-in-law. The Snitkers had been keeping tabs on him throughout his deployment.
“I’m just glad you’re home safe,” Snitker told Bagley as he shook his hand.
New defibrillator: It just so happened the Braves had installed a new defibrillator in the visiting clubhouse two weeks ago — the one Nationals trainer Lee Kuntz and assistant John Hsu used Wednesday afternoon to resuscitate a man who suffered an apparent heart attack at Turner Field. They attended to him until paramedics arrived.
Reuben Porras, 61, of Newnan, who was working as a cameraman for MLB Network, died later that night at a metro Atlanta hospital, according to the Nationals. But the defibrillator at least gave him a fighting chance.
The Braves keep two defibrillators in the home clubhouse, one in a permanent location and one in a trunk they take on the road. Visiting teams carry defibrillators as well, as the Nationals had, but the newly installed one was closer to a media workroom near the visiting weight room where the man collapsed.
