With the major league season kicking off in roughly a month, it's not very promising to see one of your team's star players fall injured. So when news broke that Chipper Jones left the United States' World Baseball Classic team due to an oblique injury, Braves fans were likely a bit worried. According to several parties close to the situation, though, worry not.
Jones reportedly felt a tweak in his right side while swinging during a fifth-inning at-bat Sunday night against Venezuela. He pulled himself from the game, despite what is being called a very minor ailment, as a precautionary measure.
"It might be 2-3 days, it might be a week," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "Chipper is smart. He's not going to do anything that could make it worse."While that may be true, I'm not sure we can just dismiss this as meaningless. It likely will be healed by Opening Day and Chipper will be anchoring the Braves' offense as he always does. The issue here, though, is how brittle he's become as he's move north of 30 years old. Here are his games played since 2003: 137, 109, 110, 134, and 128. He turns 37 a few weeks into this coming season, so is there any reason to believe he'll be manning the hot corner for a full season in Atlanta?
His leaving Team USA was the right move in the short-term, but it doesn't necessarily spell good news for the Braves. It is likely a harbinger of another injury-riddled season for the venerable future Hall of Famer.
UPDATE: Well, nevermind (sort of). Chipper will be staying with the team after all. This doesn't change the above slant on his brittle body, but it does reinforce the opinions given by Bobby Cox and Chipper's agent that the injury was very, very minor.
"I've had this thing dozens of times," Jones said. "I know the severity and I know this is probably something that can be knocked out in three or four days. If I'm smart with it, I can be back real soon. You couldn't get me away from here with a crowbar. I'm just having too much fun."He'll sit out Wednesday's relatively meaningless game and be ready for the second round of the WBC.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Funny, he is actually going into his twilight years the way most athletes do....not like, uh, i don't know Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds who got better after the age of 40?
Of course, there is always the case of Jamie Moyer...
no roids for Chipper left those to the cheaters a-roid barry roid clem roid cant wait for Selig to take back Arons record maybe it will last forever
Chipper never shouold have played on team uSA.He needs to be health for MLB and not this.If he has to miss a few games of regular season play than he should bve fined