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During last night’s loss to the Phillies, Matt Kemp’s right hamstring started to bother him again as he took off from home plate following a hit. The hit surely would’ve gotten him extra bases under normal circumstances, but he was thrown out at second while gingerly making his way to the bag. He left the game following that at-bat, and we won’t be seeing him for a while now after the Braves decided to place him on the disabled list.
The #Braves today placed Matt Kemp on the 10-day disabled list with a right hamstring strain and recalled Lane Adams from @GwinnettBraves.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) July 29, 2017
Kemp has been dealing with hamstring issues all season, and this is the second time this season that Kemp has had to do a stint on the 10-day DL due to his right hamstring. While his hamstring may have cut into what was a hot start to the season back in April, this time it comes in the midst of what’s been a very ugly stretch for Kemp at the plate right now.
Since the halfway point of the season back on July 4th, Kemp has hit a paltry .234/.298/.338 with 58 wRC+ and two home runs — a far cry from how he was hitting during the first half of the season.
You never want to see players go down due to injury, but you could argue that both the team and Kemp himself could benefit from some time off. Kemp can use the time off to recuperate and try to figure out exactly what’s going wrong at the plate, while the Braves will no longer have the option of putting a hitter who’s clearly struggling in the clean-up spot in the lineup. We’ll see what happens when it comes to that, but for now, we won’t be seeing Kemp for a while.