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There have been a few notable bits information emanating from Lake Buena Vista the past couple of days as we draw closer to the Braves' spring training opener against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday afternoon. This is an exciting time of the year, and it's exciting to finally see some video of the players at work and to see notable news coming out of Braves camp.
- First off, The Braves' official twitter account released the team's spring training starting rotation earlier this afternoon with this tweet:
ST Rotation -- 2/26: Garcia, 2/27: Medlen, 2/28: Beachy, 3/1: Teheran, 3/2: Wood (H), 3/2: Hale (R). #Braves
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) February 24, 2014
Most of the rotation looks fairly normal. Medlen, Beachy, Teherán, and Wood have been speculated to be four core members of the 2014 rotation, so it should be no surprise to see them slotted in between possible 5th starters Freddy García and David Hale in the spring rotation. However, Braves lefty Mike Minor is conspicuously absent from the rotation, a fact that many twitter users immediately noticed, which brings us to our final Spring Training news update.
- It has been revealed that Mike Minor is behind in his preparation for the start of the season due to a...well...delicate medical procedure that he underwent on December 31st. I'll let Mark Bowman give you the details.
Mike Minor is a few weeks behind because he had to rest for a month after undergoing a 12/31 procedure to repair scarring around his urethra
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) February 24, 2014
Ouch. Do you want more details? Well, ok.
#Braves Minor had procedure known as cystoscopy, to enlarge urinary tract impeded by scar tissue, the origin of which was uncertain.
— David O'Brien (@ajcbraves) February 24, 2014
Well, we certainly wish the best to Mike in his continued recovery from his medical procedure. His arm is evidently just a few weeks behind where it ought to be for this time of the year, as he experienced some shoulder soreness while throwing earlier in camp. He expects to be ready for the beginning of the regular season, perhaps slotting in as the #5 starter in order to have a few extra days to prepare for his pitching debut in 2014.
- Now, on to less cringe-worthy news, David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution shared a plethora of video from camp yesterday. One of my favorites, embedded below, was a neat time lapse video of the main field at the Braves' complex at Disney's Wide World of Sports and of various Braves players batting.
- O'Brien also provided us with video of BJ Upton, Justin Upton, and Jason Heyward (still wearing his Bane mask!) taking hacks in the cage against Kris Medlen, as well as video of a swoon-worthy matchup of Jason Heyward facing Craig Kimbrel in the cages. Pitchers, in general, appear to be a little bit ahead of hitters at this point, which shouldn't be surprising. A general video of the batters against the pitchers on Sunday, along with O'Brien's commentary, is embedded below.