With more than half of spring training completed and opening day a little more than three weeks away, the Braves’ report card is incomplete on Dan Uggla and B.J. Upton, veteran hitters trying to bounce back from career-worst performances last season.
Upton was 4-for-20 (.200) with two doubles and a .238 on-base percentage in seven games before Saturday, when the center fielder was a late scratch from the split-squad lineup against Miami because of sickness. Jose Constanza replaced him and had three hits in a game that ended in a 6-6 tie after nine innings, the third tie in 13 games for the Braves (2-8-3).
Uggla was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts in the other split-squad game, an 8-2 loss against the Nationals in Viera.
For the spring, Upton has one walk and eight strikeouts, including five strikeouts in nine at-bats over his past three games.
“We’re seeing some fundamentally good swings, and then we’re seeing some spins,” Braves hitting coach Greg Walker said of Upton, who had too much movement in the batter’s box when he set career lows in average (.186), on-base percentage (.268) and slugging percentage (.289), matched his full-season low of nine homers and struck out 151 times in 391 at-bats.
It was his first season in a five-year, $75.25 million contract, the largest free-agent deal in Braves history.
Upton, 29, eliminated much of the leg and head movement in his stance during the winter, trying to get back to the simpler swing he had years ago with Tampa Bay. Generally speaking, he’s looked better in batting practice than games this spring.
“He does some different things in the game that he doesn’t do in BP,” Walker said. “He knows what he’s trying to do, and in the games we’re getting about a third of them that are really good, and then about two-thirds of them he’s spinning. He seems to be getting better and better. We’re trying to get his bad-posture spin out of it.
“We need more than what we’ve got so far, but he’s headed in the right direction, I think.”
Uggla is 4-for-17 (.235) with four singles, five walks and seven strikeouts. After collecting three hits and three walks in nine plate appearances in his first three games, he has one hit in 16 plate appearances over his past five games.
“When he came into camp everything was great,” Walker said. “Then he lost it for two or three days.”
Uggla is still owed $26 million in 2014-15. Barring a trade, he’ll be the opening-day second baseman and have a chance to show he can still be productive. But if he struggles, the Braves have options, including prospect Tommy La Stella.
Heyward, J-Up excel: The Braves' 18 hits against the Marlins included two hits and three RBIs from Justin Upton, and a 3-for-3 game by leadoff hitter Jason Heyward, who has hits in five consecutive plate appearances over two games to raise his spring average to .348. That included his second home run Friday against the Red Sox.
Upton was 2-for-12 for the spring before Saturday, when he drove in Heyward twice and would’ve had a three-hit, five-RBI game were it not for a difficult running catch in the left-center gap by Marlins left fielder Brian Bogusevic.
Garcia's rough outing: His previously perfect spring came unraveled for Freddy Garcia against the Marlins, when the Braves veteran was charged with six hits, six runs and four walks in 2 2/3 innings. He gave up four hits including a homer in a two-run second inning, then walked four in the third before Rob Brantley's three-run double made the score 6-2.
A few innings later a Braves spokesman said Garcia left immediately and headed to Miami, where his wife was in labor.
Bench coach Carlos Tosca, who managed the split-squad against Miami, was asked if Garcia might’ve been distracted.
“I didn’t know anything about (his wife being in labor) until just now when you mentioned it, but that would distract me,” said Tosca, who cited pitch location and movement on his split-finger fastball as key factors for Garcia’s rough outing.
“He didn’t exactly get the outer third of the plate to get ahead (in counts), and his split-finger was really hanging in the strike zone, it wasn’t diving down. … He is what he is. He’s going to have days like that. He’s got to get the outside third of the plate, and that split’s got to be working for him.”
Garcia, 37, pitched five perfect innings with five strikeouts in his previous two starts against the Tigers and Mets, but threw just 37 strikes in 71 pitches Saturday. A former hard-throwing ace who now must rely on change of speed and location, Garcia is competing for a spot with Alex Wood, who limited the Red Sox to two hits in three scoreless innings Friday.
