Sports Page Atlanta

Going into yesterday’s game, Mark Kotsay had his second consecutive day off due to back spasms, and it appeared that he may have been heading to the disabled list. Three hours later, things changed immensely.

Matt Diaz, on a pop fly down the left field line, slid into the wall and banged his knee against exposed concrete underneath the padded wall. Why do ball parks not place padding from the top to the bottom of the wall? Well, lunacy for one, but that’s another entry for another time.

If the Braves were to disable Kotsay along with Diaz, that would leave Omar Infante as the presumptive starting CF. If not Infante, then who? Bring up Brandon Jones for LF and play Gregor Blanco in center? Certainly a possibility considering Blanco’s early season success. But, the bigger story in this whole situation is Jordan Schaffer. This situation is screaming for the big league debut of Wonderboy. What? A 50-game HGH suspension? Crap.

So, what now? Kotsay needs to play. We all expected him to take days off to rest the back, after all, he did only play 56 games last season. But, if he’s able, he needs to suck it up right now. We all were teased with his early season surge, and the Braves absolutely need him in the lineup, in whatever spot Bobby decides to hit him, immediately.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Atlanta Braves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.