Braves put Chipper Jones on DL with hurt hamstring
As if that’s not bad enough, instead of Langerhans or Nilsson or someone else lefthanded, they called up Mike Hessman again to do whatever it is Mike Hessman is supposed to do. Get used to the DeWayne Wise Experience for at least another week. One of these days, either Langerhans or Hollins is going to take some hostages, mark my words.
PS: Just to note, I’m not opposed to Mike Hessman in principle. I’m opposed to the way they’re going to use him. The Braves neither need another righthanded bench bat nor another guy with a low OBP. They need someone who can hit like a league-average left fielder for the next few days. They’d be much better off bringing up one of the two guys I mentioned above and making him the platoon leftfielder, with Wise dropping to his natural fifth outfielder/defensive replacement/pinch-runner role.
Langerhans has to wonder what the heck he has to do other than be in Greenville when the Braves need an emergency outfielder. I think that just as Bobby Cox is enamored of power arms (although for some reason he doesn’t like Juan Cruz) he is just as enamored over guys who can hit home runs. Thus Hessman. The guy is a classic AAAA ball player in the mold of Wes Helms except with an even worse OBP.
I’m not saying that it’s either right or wrong, but it was way too hard for the team to ignore that hessman hit 5 home runs in 33 at bats.
It appears Hessman will be this year’s yo-yo man. His problem will always be he needs steady ABs to produce and he probably isn’t going to get them with this team.
Who knows? Nice win last night though.