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The Braves have been very busy in the last couple of days as they traded Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe for a pair of pitching prospects from the Mets. This not only opened up a couple of roster spots, but it also created a severe lack of depth at first base for the Braves with Freddie Freeman being out.
However, Freeman had an excellent rehab start with the GCL Braves yesterday and the Braves decided to forgo the plan to bring him back this coming Thursday and went ahead and activated him for the rest of the Cardinals series.
#Braves activate Freddie Freeman from 15-day DL. Joins team in St Louis for tonight's game.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienAJC) July 25, 2015
It appears that the trade with the Mets certainly impacted the decision to activate Freeman early.
Freddie Freeman will rejoin the Braves today in St. Louis. The plan was to wait until Thursday, but trades happen.
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) July 25, 2015
Another interesting move was that instead of having Freeman occupy one of the two roster spots vacated by the Uribe-KJohnson trade, the Braves sent Joey Terdoslavich back down to Gwinnett. The rationale was understood a bit better when you consider that Terdoslavich had struggled in his time with Atlanta and the Braves wanted to give a couple of other guys another look with the big club.
#Braves have also recalled Daniel Castro & Adonis Garcia from Triple-A
— Kevin McAlpin (@KevinMcAlpin) July 25, 2015
Infielder Daniel Castro and 3B Adonis Garcia have both made very brief appearances with the Braves already this year and will provide bench depth in the infield with the departures of Uribe and Johnson.
The offense has struggle mightily with Freeman out of the lineup, so Braves fans are hopeful that his presence can jump start the team and at least keep the team in games when the other team scores more than 3 runs.
**UPDATE**
Freddie's flight won't land in time for him to be in the lineup, but he should arrive at the stadium this evening
#Braves Freeman's flight not scheduled to land in STL until about 30 minutes before game so he won't be in lineup
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienAJC) July 25, 2015