Atlanta Braves Tommy La Stella Injured, Leaves Game

Atlanta Braves second basemen, Tommy La Stella, left Monday night’s game in the 2nd inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers with an apparent upper right hamstring injury.

Carl Crawford hit a sharp line drive between Freddie Freeman and La Stella in the top of the inning and right after the play, the cameras went to Crawford and Freeman on first base.  When Freeman wasn’t talking to Carl or looking away from the direction of second base, I thought right away we may have an injury.

After the ball escaped the infield, Tommy came up holding the top of his right leg.  The trainers and Fredi Gonzalez came out to talk with La Stella.  He gave a quick jog in the outfield and a few words to Fredi and came out of the game.

The 25-year-old is batting .285/.367/.362 in the 65 games he’s played in for the Braves.  Tommy has 13 doubles, one triple and a homer.  He’s been the lone consistent hitter the Braves have had since the All-Star break.

The injury hopefully isn’t anything serious and reports are it may just be a cramp in his top right hamstring.  It looks like he may have just came out for precautionary reasons and could return to the lineup tomorrow.

UPDATE: From Manager Fredi Gonzalez after the game…

“It was probably my fault, more of a precaution than anything else.  He pulls up there a little bit and we go out there and asked him to run but he grabbed it again.  I said then ‘we don’t want to take a chance here.  If it’s something minor, I want to keep it minor’.  I didn’t want to leave him in the game and it become something more severe.  We’ll evaluate him tomorrow.  Everything I’ve been told is that he should be able to play tomorrow.”