House That Hank Built
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New Atlanta Braves News from Around the Infield

By Alan Carpenter

Jun 18, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago White Sox third baseman Gordon Beckham (15) makes a catch against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the ninth inning at U.S Cellular Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 18, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago White Sox third baseman Gordon Beckham (15) makes a catch against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the ninth inning at U.S Cellular Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports /
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Jul 25, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; Atlanta Braves second baseman Jace Peterson (8) throws to first during a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Kane-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 25, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; Atlanta Braves second baseman Jace Peterson (8) throws to first during a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Kane-USA TODAY Sports /

So It’s Not a Beckham/Peterson Platoon?

Two tweets from David O’Brien this morning from FanFest that were both a bit surprising:

Okay, let’s deal with each one of these in turn.

Jace’s Thumb

This was Jace’s throwing hand and his lower (knob) hand on the bat (throws right, bats left).  It’s a bit surprising that his fielding and throwing still kept up as well as it did (9 total errors; 5 when throwing the ball), but clearly his batting suffered as the season wore on.

When we first learned of his injury early this week, we believed that it was his wrist that was involved.  Instead it comes to light that his thumb was specifically involved.

No wonder he has trouble controlling the bat after June.  I don’t know how he could hang onto a bat during his follow-through… or continue to throw without obvious issues.

O’Brien later answered a tweet from a follower who asked the obvious question:  was there corrective surgery?  His answer was no… the doctors simply immobilized the hand for 6 weeks.

I suppose we’ll have to set aside the notion of ‘how much the Braves knew of this and when did they know about it’.  Jace had to have hidden at least some of the injury – 1 MRI would have revealed all and he’d have been done for the year.

Ignoring that, then, the bigger question is now this one:  will Jace be ready for the season to start?

We didn’t get an answer to that… at least not directly.  Hold that thought for a bit – we’ll get back to that later.

Next: Second Thoughts on the Second Sackers

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