Braves look to keep on prospering in spite of injuries in tonight’s game against Marlins

After picking up another win against the Marlins, the Braves are right back at it again tonight in the second game of this series that will end what’s been a successful stint at home so far.

The main concern will be the injuries, as it just seems like guys are dropping left and right. Last night, Brian McCann left the game due to “left knee soreness.” While it was described as being done for precautionary reasons, Mark Bowman has been reporting that the Braves aren’t even going to take any chances and that McCann is probably going to do a stint on the 10-day IL and Alex Jackson will likely be called up.

Additionally, it was clear that new addition Adeiny Hechavarria was experiencing some sort of pain after he made the spectacular defensive play to end last night’s game. While there hasn’t been any word on his status, I think that we’d all be extremely grateful for it to just be a scare instead of something serious. This team’s injury luck has completely turned 180 degrees as of late, so a clean bill of health for Hechavarria would be a true blessing.

In healthy Braves news, Freddie Freeman busted out of a big slump last night in a major way. After spending the Dodgers series in the doldrums, he welcomed Miami back to SunTrust Park with two homers and four RBIs. This offense always hums along when Freddie is mashing, so it would be huge to see him keep that up for the rest of this series and beyond.

The Braves as a whole will not only be looking to pick up where they left off last night against Miami, they’ll be looking to pick up where they left off against Caleb Smith. Their offensive bright spot during that stressful four-game series in Miami earlier this month came against Smith, and that was when they tagged Smith for six runs over 4.2 innings. In fact, the Braves haven’t had much trouble against Smith this season — they’ve scored 11 runs with him on the mound over the 16.2 innings that he’s thrown against them this season. Even though the Braves are a bit shorthanded, it would still be a bit of a disappointment if they couldn’t have some sort of breakthrough against Caleb Smith tonight.

Speaking of a breakthrough, Julio Teheran is in desperate need of one after his last start. It was an absolutely calamitous night for the franchise veteran of the rotation, as he had what was easily his worst start of the season. There’s nowhere to go but up after what the Mets did to him during his last time out, and the good news for Julio is that he’s had a very good track record against the Marlins this season. Do you remember the start Julio made before his awful outing against New York? He threw seven innings and only gave up one run against Miami. That one run is the only run that Miami has scored against Julio Teheran so far this season over 25 innings. If Julio is going to bounce back, tonight seems like a prime opportunity for him to do so.

On paper, this seems like this should be a slam dunk for the Braves. The pitching matchup is in their favor and when it comes to the matchups overall, the Braves are the Braves and the Marlins are the Marlins. Hopefully the Braves can take care of business and pick up another win and also get out of this game with nobody else taking a trip to the Injured List. Prosperity and health are two things that everybody should strive for and the Braves are definitely looking to regain the latter part.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Wednesday, August 21, 2019, 7:20 PM EST

Location: SunTrust Park, Atlanta, GA

TV: Fox Sports Southeast

Streaming: MLB.tv

Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan, Rock 100.5, Braves Radio Network