20 September: Atlanta has officially announced the reinstatement of Albies. Infielder Cavan Biggio was sent to Triple-A Gwinnett in a corresponding move. Biggio has more than five years of major league service time and thus cannot be sent to the minor leagues without his consent, so he presumably agreed to be sent back.
19 September: The Braves welcome Ozzie Albies tomorrow. Manager Brian Snitker confirmed after today’s 15-3 loss to the Reds that Atlanta will activate Albies from the 10-day injured list (link via Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). They have been without their star second baseman for nearly two months due to a fractured left wrist. The Braves must create an active roster spot tomorrow.
Albies is still uncomfortable hitting from the left side, so he’ll stick to the right-handed batter’s box, which is generally his much stronger side. Albies has a career batting average of .339/.364/.568 against left-handed pitchers. Against right-handers, he has a roughly average batting average of .247/.309/.437. His job as a right-handed hitter becomes more difficult when he doesn’t always have the platoon advantage (not to mention the challenge of getting back into the game after an eight-week absence). Still, if Albies had to choose one side of the bat, he would certainly choose that one.
It’s the make-or-break period for Atlanta. The Braves are 1.5 games behind the Diamondbacks and Mets in the battle for the final playoff spot in the National League (depending on the results of Arizona and New York tonight). Atlanta has the tiebreaker over Arizona. They split the season series with the Mets and will decide that tiebreaker with a three-game set at home early next week. It looks like it will be the biggest regular season series of the year for each team.
Atlanta heads to Miami for a three-game weekend. They have Monday off before finishing their season at home with the Mets and three games against the Royals (who may be fighting for their playoff chances). The Mets host the Phillies for four games this weekend before finishing their season with road games at Atlanta and Milwaukee. Arizona has a four-game series at Milwaukee and hosts the Giants and Padres for three games each next week.
The Braves have had a mediocre offense in recent months. Since Albies’ injury, they rank 13th in scoring, with similarly mediocre performances in on-base percentage (16th) and slugging (12th). Atlanta’s second basemen are hitting .220/.319/.296 in 216 at-bats during that span. That is offset by terrible performances in small sample sizes of Luke Williams and view Nacho Alvarez Jr. The Braves have the most repetitions at second base Whit Merrifieldwho hit .344 on base but hasn’t shown any power since signing with Atlanta.
Merrifield has plenty of experience bouncing around the field, so if Snitker wanted to keep him in the lineup, he’d probably move him to third base and bench him. Gio Urshela. The experienced corner infielder has a batting average of .234/.258/.340 in 26 games as a Brave. Urshela signed a major league contract following Austin Riley’s Injury not long after Urshela was released by the Tigers.
