Before Sunday afternoon’s loss to the Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves President of Baseball Operations/General Manager Alex Anthopoulos spoke with BravesVision Play-by-Play commentator Brandon Gaudin in something of a “state of the front office”-type interview. With that being said, the biggest question of the session had to do with catcher Drake Balwin. Baldwin is currently on the IL with an oblique strain and there’s been little in the way of hammering down a potential return date for Atlanta’s
rising star of a catcher.
AA did provide a little bit of an update but it’s still something that’s more of an estimate rather than something concrete to look forward to. With a Grade 1 oblique strain, the time frame is usually around 3-4 weeks and AA mentioned that when it comes to that sort of thing, he and the rest of the front office like to use the latter estimate instead of the former. If it’s four weeks then that would mean that mid-June would seem like the time to hopefully start expecting an imminent return for Baldwin.
AA also mentioned that he isn’t anticipating that Baldwin’s return would be preceded by a rehab stint. He explained that since Sean Murphy and Ha-Seong Kim didn’t have a spring training, they needed the rehab stint when compared to Baldwin’s situation. In the case of Baldwin, since he’s been getting plenty of regular season reps (and swinging the bat very well, to be frank) that would mean that they’d try to just throw him back in the action once it’s clear that he’s healthy.
Again, this is all pretty nebulous and when you once again consider that this is an oblique injury that we’re talking about, I’d imagine that the Braves are going to take it very easy when it comes to bringing Drake Baldwin back into the fold. They also have the benefit of having the best record in baseball with a comfortable lead in the division, so it’s not like they have to rush Baldwin back into the fold. It also helps that Ronald Acuña Jr. appears primed to pick up the baton that Baldwin unfortunately had to drop due to his injury.
All of this is to say that Baldwin is likely still at least a couple of weeks away from starting to really ramp up for a return. As I mentioned above, it’s good that the Braves don’t have to rush him but it’s also fun to imagine what this lineup could look like with everybody firing on all cylinders. We still have yet to see this lineup in it’s fully healthy form and it’s very exciting to think about what this offense could do with its full compliment of players.
For now, it’s time to remain patient when it comes to Drake Baldwin coming back in the near future. There are plenty of reasons to be patient and hopefully Baldwin will go back to raking once he does eventually make his return from a notoriously tricky injury to deal with. We’ll see what happens.
Meanwhile, AA did provide some tangible good news when it comes to their injured pitching. He told Gaudin that Hurston Waldrep is apparently going to begin a rehab stint on Monday, so that’s obviously good news. Waldrep is clearly on the road to recovery and apparently he’s been throwing bullpen sessions where he’s been hitting 96-99 mph on the radar gun. That’s pretty exciting to hear and hopefully this means that Waldrep will be arriving to join a Braves pitching staff that has already been doing a great job of holding down the fort without the likes of Waldrep or Spencer Schwellenbach as well.
