Braves catcher Tyler Flowers returned to the starting lineup Tuesday, handling backstop duties and hitting eighth in the order. He was set to catch Max Fried, who pitched six scoreless innings in his previous outing.
Flowers was hit in the hand by a 98-mph fastball in Saturday’s loss to the Marlins. Flowers and the Braves are fortunate that the injury kept him out of action for only two games.
“I was pretty good to go yesterday, even better today,” Flowers said. His absence, along with Brian McCann requiring time on the injured list, gave rookie Alex Jackson lead catching duties for the past couple of days.
The Braves wanted to work Flowers into Tuesday’s lineup given the uncertainty of Wednesday’s game. Denver is under a blizzard warning and even if the game is played, the team didn’t want Flowers playing in cold conditions.
“If he was going to play one of the next two days, I wanted him to play today because the weather forecast is so bad for (Wednesday). So we were either going to wait until the homestand (beginning Thursday) or see how he felt today – he came in today and hit off the velocity machine, felt good – so we wanted to get him back out there.”
Flowers has become a magnet for pitches. He’s been hit by 42 pitches with the Braves, sixth-most in Atlanta-era Braves history.
