ajc.com | Braves | BRAVES 6, RANGERS 5
I don’t normally link the AJC game stories (for a couple of reasons) but I did want to mention something I hadn’t seen. Apparently Andruw’s knee feels well enough to play and he’d told Bobby he could do everything except throw — his shoulder is also acting up. So why wasn’t he in the lineup last night? Darren Bragg can’t throw either.
I was saying even before this info that Jones was getting benched under the guise of an injury for the bone-head play where he was almost picked off of second on a fly ball that would have ended the game,had the umpire made the correct call. Fick got the same thing when he blamed a poor throw on a sore shoulder without telling Bobby it was sore. He got the 15 day DL for that one, even though he probably only needed to miss a few games. Another example of Bobby being able to balance ego with discipline. Nobody gets embarassed by getting “benched”, yet they get the message.
Seems unlikely to me. 1. The Braves aren’t going to bench someone for hustling, even dumb hustling. 2. They also aren’t going to put Mark DeRosa in left field for an entire game if they can help it. 3. They certainly won’t bench someone for two games for one play.
As Don Sutton often says on the air, Cox’s rule of thumb is to give a player a couple more days to heal after the player says he’s ready. Maybe that’s the case this time…
Does anyone else think it is time to ship Bragg and see what Donzell McDonald can do as a fourth outfielder (btw McDonald can play a respectable CF in addition to the corners.)
I’ve been saying that the Braves should do that for a couple weeks now. Bragg has to go, and if he doesn’t like Richmond, let him leave.