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Atlanta Braves: Freddie Freeman has successful elbow surgery

By Jake Mastroianni

ST LOUIS, MISSOURI - OCTOBER 06: Freddie Freeman #5 of the Atlanta Braves awaits the pitch against the St. Louis Cardinals during the first inning in game three of the National League Division Series at Busch Stadium on October 06, 2019 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
ST LOUIS, MISSOURI - OCTOBER 06: Freddie Freeman #5 of the Atlanta Braves awaits the pitch against the St. Louis Cardinals during the first inning in game three of the National League Division Series at Busch Stadium on October 06, 2019 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /
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The Atlanta Braves announced on Friday morning that All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman had successful right elbow surgery on Wednesday.

This comes as little surprise to Atlanta Braves fans who could clearly see that Freddie Freeman wasn’t the same player down the stretch.

Freddie started dealing with bone spurs in his right elbow in early September — as far as we know, he may have been dealing with them even longer.

Related Story. Extent of FF injury and the fallout. light

Being the leader that Freddie is, he downplayed just how bad the injury was during the regular season and in the postseason, but just looking at the numbers it seems pretty obvious they were affecting him at the plate.

The Atlanta Braves first baseman was in the thick of the NL MVP conversation when he entered the month of September. On Sept. 1 he hit 2 home runs bringing his season total to 38 and in the process, he raised his batting average back over .300.

But that would be the last home run he hit in the regular sesaon, and his batting average dropped from .302 after that Sept. 1 game down to .295 to end the season.

He hit just .264 in the month of September, which might be good for a lot of players, but for Mr. Consistancy, that was the lowest monthly average of his 2019 season.

And he just simply lacked the pop he had earlier in the year.

It looked like the rest at the end of the season may have done him some good as he went 2-for-4 with a home run in Game 1 of the NLDS. But then he went hitless in the next three games and failed to come through in some big spots for the Braves.

Unfortunately, you can’t do anything to heal the bone spurs other than rest or surgery, and Freeman couldn’t afford to do either of those late in the season.

Hopefully with this surgery, his elbow will be fully healed and cleaned out in time for the 2020 season.

We’ll never know just how much this injury was holding Freddie back. He said it wasn’t the reason for his struggles in the postseason, but it’s hard to believe that when you watched some of his at-bats.

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Either way, I’m glad he was able to get this taken care of, and I have no doubt he’ll come back more motivated than ever next season.

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