Hello again everybody! I’m coming to you tonight from my personal floating glacier in Michigan, as the 15 degree weather has re-frozen all the snow that started to melt yesterday. And I don’t miss Hawaii at all!
The good news out of Braves camp today was that Fredi Gonzalez decided to literally surprise Chipper by giving him his first start at third. Chipper said that he had no idea he was playing the field until he saw the lineup, but that he was already thinking about lobbying for the chance beforehand.
By all accounts he did well. He saw all his defensive action in the first inning. After catching a wind-blown pop-up, he had to range to his right, plant, and make what turned out to be a perfect throw to first on a grounder. He said there was no chance he was even thinking about jumping to make the throw! He played four innings, coming out after singling in the fourth.
Chipper said the knee felt fine afterward and that he planned on playing the field again Friday.
While there are bound to be ups and downs all spring, I tend to view this whole week very positively. Even the occasional bad day hasn’t been that bad and he’s yet to have back to back bad ones. While I think he’s still got some mental obstacles to overcome in making the plays happen naturally without thinking about the knee, right now the 130-140 game target for him looks reasonable. And that’s more than reasonably good news for the Braves, I think. Any other thoughts out there?
Original Story:
http://tomahawktake.com/2011/03/03/ch...
