Freeman sits; Prado starts at first base
Freddie Freeman’s left hand was still sore on Friday so the Braves decided to give him another day’s rest in hopes that three days off will help his progress. Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said this is the kind of injury Freeman will like have to deal with all season.
“It’s going to be one of those things that (trainer Jeff Porter) said it may linger all year,” Gonzalez said. “It’s up to him to try to play through it and (find a) comfort level and see how he feels.”
Against Baltimore left-hander Brian Matusz, Gonzalez gave Martin Prado his first start of the season at first base. Prado had played 52 games at first base, including 34 starts, getting the bulk of them in 2008 and 2009 when he was more of a true utility player.
Prado looked right at home already in the first inning when he completed a 3-6-3 double play behind Tommy Hanson. He did it using Eric Hinske’s glove. Prado had taken groundballs at first base during batting practice on Wednesday in case Gonzalez wanted to use him this way.
“I’m going to go out there and take a lot of groundballs and get the feeling again,” Prado said before batting practice on Friday. “Get some throws from the guys at short, third, and do my best.”
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22 comments Add your comment
Ralph
June 15th, 2012
8:01 pm
lst
IlliniBrave
June 15th, 2012
8:29 pm
2nd
SidSlid
June 15th, 2012
8:39 pm
Is that all these two idiots on TV can do is complain about the umpiring? How about a little research or some background info on the players–even if it is straight out of the press guide? For heaven sakes, what do they DO all day?
bruce
June 15th, 2012
9:06 pm
marteeeeeen
Mike Lum
June 15th, 2012
9:06 pm
That’s a lot of research, Sid. The announcers on on air over 650 hours during the course of the season. That gives them 25 hours to talk about each Brave. I guess they could tell the entire life story of all of them. Is that what you want?
Mike Lum
June 15th, 2012
9:09 pm
Perhaps they should hire Ken Burns.
CARL AVEN
June 15th, 2012
9:16 pm
SIMMONS LOOKS TO BE THE REAL THING …BUT WHERE IS HIS CANNON ARM YOU ALL HAVE BEEN BRAGGING ABOUT…IS THERE A HINT OF BEING TOO LACKADASICAL COMING FORTH ?JUST WONDERING
Brandon
June 15th, 2012
9:18 pm
@Carl Aven …no, it was just a high throw
jj
June 15th, 2012
9:25 pm
Dusty Baker cut down Lowe for his remarks last week..DB said Lowe was
probably drunk when he brought up something that happen years age. LOL!
Really?
June 15th, 2012
9:32 pm
@jj … that would be years ‘ago’ not years age… LOL myself.. put the beer down before you slam Lowe for drinking.. love it when someone criticizes someone else and clearly has the same problem… try AA.. it works for most people.
SidSlid
June 15th, 2012
9:42 pm
No…tell us where the batter is from originally or maybe a quote from the batting cage earlier in the day–anything but grousing about the balls and strikes calls. Joe Simpleton has been doing that every single inning. He just said the home plate ump had a bad night because Tommy Hansen walked six. The person who used the term “Braves apologist” hit it on the head when describing him. It is almost turn down the audio time but I hate to miss the sounds of the game because of a dumbo behind the mike.
dan morris
June 15th, 2012
10:28 pm
Martin Prado is not a left fielder. He not a 2nd baseman. He is not a 3rd baseman and he is not a 1st baseman. HE IS A BASEBALL PLAYER AND HE COULD PLAY FOR ME ANYDAY. Got to love his attitude and willingness to do what is best for the team at any time. As a coach, I feel that it is players like him that young athletes of all sports should learn from. He is a guy that is so versitile it is almost impossible for him to come out of any lineup in baseball.
NickB
June 15th, 2012
11:08 pm
Prado would probably be a top 5 fielding 1st baseman, too bad his bat doesn’t profile well enough to play there. But hey, I’ll be more than happy to see him at 3b for years to come
bob didier
June 15th, 2012
11:13 pm
If FF is going to wimp it, need to bring up Constanza to play LF and give us some speed and defense against righties. Dan is right. Prado is a valuable Brave and can play anywhere except SS and CF and C. Probably our most valuable Brave.
bob didier
June 15th, 2012
11:15 pm
We need to DL O’Flaherty, Freeman, and anyone else who can’t play and get them well. Beachy too. If there arms are sore, better to DL them instead of hurting it worse and having to go for surgery.
22fortheWin
June 16th, 2012
3:49 am
Joe and Skip can be entertaining at times but they’re certainly not Ernie Johnson and Pete Van Wieren. Pete was a great announcer because he was a prepared announcer. He wasn’t called “The Professor” for nothing. BTW, pick up his book, “Of Mikes and Men: A Lifetime of Braves Baseball” for a super read.
Nattering Nabob
June 16th, 2012
8:12 am
Yep, they’re all just a bunch of high paid wimps. Yep.
OTP
June 16th, 2012
8:46 am
I agree. Let’s put these wimps on the disabled list, and give someone else a chance to play. It cannot hurt.
reckingball
June 16th, 2012
9:06 am
SidSlide……they were commenting aabout the umpire, because he was making some bad calls, and those calls were affecting the Braves ability, to get runners on base, and their ability to move runners over, and score.
And with their recent problems with hitting with RISP, they didn’t need anymore help in their problems to score runs.
If you need more info on the players, you could probably find it somewhere on the world/wide/web. haha
Carzo
June 16th, 2012
9:50 am
Just can’t handle Chip Caray. Simpson is fair at best. I really like when Glavine, Dale Murphy etc. sit in just for something different. Listen to Chip scream when there are semi-exciting plays. Ridiculous.
Mike
June 16th, 2012
11:16 am
Dan, I’m with you. Prado is the man! He hustles and does everything he can to win a game. He played some great defense last night.
BravesWin
June 16th, 2012
1:58 pm
Right about the broadcast crew. Simpson is so busy being a homer that he can’t be objective…Chip chuckles with every other sentence, and blows up a routine play into “fantastic!”…I miss Skip and Pete.