The Atlanta Braves continued to get bad news on the injury front as it was announced that Ronald Acuña Jr. would be out for the rest of the season.
What we thought was just hip tightness when Ronald Acuna Jr. exited the game on Tuesday night ended up being a groin strain for the Atlanta Braves center fielder.
The only good news in all of this is that Brian Snitker seems pretty confident that Acuna will be ready to go for game one of the NLDS.
But after they discussed everything with the doctors it became clear that they didn’t need to push him in what is essentially meaningless games for the Atlanta Braves to end the regular sesaon.
Acuna (sprained left hip) will continue to hit and throw, but he will not play the remainder of the regular season. Snitker is confident Acuna will be ready for the NLDS.
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) September 25, 2019
Snitker would go on to make it sound like that if these games meant anything for the Braves that Acuna could probably go.
The secondary buzzkill here is that Acuna won’t have a chance to reach 40-40 this season, but as I wrote earlier this morning, he should have plenty of other chances.
He’ll finish the regular season with 41 home runs and 37 stolen bases, as well as a league-leading 127 runs scored and 101 RBI.
Acuna also leads the league with 188 strikeouts, which is something he’ll hopefully look to work on in the offsesaon.
Other Injury News
There was some positive injury news on Wednesday.
Freddie Freeman is feeling better and is expected to play this weekend in New York, and Ender Inciarte could play this weekend as well.
Freddie Freeman was feeling great today as well. He’ll rejoin the team Friday.
— Gabe Burns (@GabeBurnsAJC) September 25, 2019
Ender Inciarte is progressing well and might also be in Friday’s lineup.
The Ender news is huge for me. I really want to see him get a chance to play this weekend to see if he’s healthy and if he’s playing like he was before going down again.
A healthy Ender Inciarte in center field and at the bottom of the lineup would be a huge boost to the Atlanta Braves.
On the other, it sounds like Johan Camargo is not progressing as quickly as hoped and it doesn’t sound like he’ll be ready for the NLDS.
After Wednesday, the Atlanta Braves will only have three games left in the regular season. Let’s just hope we can avoid any more injuries the rest of the way and that our guys can rest and get healthy for next Thursday.