This season, the Atlanta Braves are just not able to get any luck. Every other day it looks like another important Braves player is going to spend a significant portion of the season on the injured list. The spiral began when UCL tears ended Spencer Strider’s season, and it continued from there.
Austin Riley is the most recent casualty of the ill-fated 2024 Atlanta Braves season. Riley had to exit the game after the inning due to a sinkerball that smacked him in the hand this week, traveling at 97 mph. Riley had fractured his hand, and subsequent imaging verified this. He would be out of commission for the next six to eight weeks as he healed.
It resembles the same ailment that kept Mookie Betts out of the game for a significant portion of the season.
The Braves were understandably furious about this. Some inside the organization weren’t content to merely be angry; instead, they wanted to blame the Angels rather than the baseball gods.
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After Austin Riley’s injury, the Braves are pointing the finger in the wrong place.
In response to the announcement that Riley would miss a large amount of time, Braves beat writer David O’Brien recently posted on X/Twitter. What he stated was this:
“After Travis d’Arnaud & Austin Riley were hit in hand/wrist on consecutive days by up-and-in pitches at Anaheim, one prominent staffer said, speaking for many in MLB who’ve had similar issues w/ command-challenged pitchers, ‘Baseball needs to take care of that.'”
In response to another remark from a Braves fan, O’Brien stated, “Hitting guys with back-foot sliders is entirely different than hitting them with fastballs up and in.”
It appears as though O’Brien and the well-known Braves employee he described had a grudge against the Los Angeles Angels.
However, the pitcher was unable to control a fastball in the first inning. The pitch had no ulterior motive. Pitchers will occasionally miss their spot when pitching inside because it’s a part of the game. It takes place. Baseball is played.
In addition, Ron Washington, the esteemed former Braves coach, is the manager of the Angels. Washington could not in good conscience permit his pitchers to intentionally hit Atlanta’s star players with fastballs.
Baseball involves throwing inside the ballpark. These risky pitches hitting you will occur due to the increase in velocity. It is not appropriate to blame the Angels in this instance. It’s just a sad incident with devastating repercussions.
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