ATLANTA — When Hunter Greene’s 98-mph fastball struck Orlando Arcia’s left wrist, Arcia immediately hopped around the batter’s box, clearly in a ton of pain.
“Any time you get hit in the hands and all that by a kid throwing that hard, immediately you think the worst,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “Hopefully it isn’t.”
The early outlook might be positive: X-rays on Arcia’s wrist were negative. There’s no fracture. It might simply be bruised. It was swollen after Wednesday’s 5-4 win over the Reds.
“I think any time you take a 98-mph ball to the wrist, I think everyone’s first notion is that it’s broken,” Arcia said through interpreter Franco García. “Fortunately, that’s not the case and it doesn’t seem to be anything severe, so that’s good.”
Does Arcia expect to hit the injured list?
“I’m just happy that we won, happy that the team won,” he said. “And as far as the IL, no.”
Added Snitker: “I can’t say that for sure until we see him in the morning and see what it looks like when he gets in here.”
Of course, Arcia, who has displayed his toughness before, won’t want to miss time. But the Braves will do whatever is best for him.
They will treat him through Friday morning, when they will see how much he has improved, if at all. It’s difficult to know how long he might be out, only because a lot of it depends on how he feels on Thursday.
The Braves are off Thursday.
After Greene plunked him in the bottom of the second inning, Arcia stayed in the game and played shortstop in the top of the third. In the bottom of the third, Ehire Adrianza hit for Arcia before replacing him at shortstop.
“(The pain) probably hadn’t really set in yet,” Snitker said. “Because he had his wrist pretty well heavily taped anyway. So it’s probably good that he had that, because I noticed on there, it was like it was pretty thick, (something) that just he wears all the time anyway. And then I think once he came back, it was starting to get him a little bit and bothering him a lot.”
That’s when the Braves removed him from the game and sent him for X-rays.
“Just the way he’s going right now, (a fracture) would’ve been the worst thing ever,” starting pitcher Spencer Strider said. “Definitely felt for him, glad that it’s not too serious and hopefully he’s able to get back out there as soon as possible.”
The Braves are already without Max Fried, Michael Harris II, Travis d’Arnaud, Collin McHugh and Raisel Iglesias.
Arcia, who won the starting shortstop competition this spring, is 15-for-45 with two doubles, two home runs and seven RBIs to start the season. He hit a walk-off single in a dramatic win over the Padres during the home opener at Truist Park.
If Arcia needed to go on the injured list, Gwinnett’s Vaughn Grissom and Braden Shewmake would be the candidates to replace him for the time being.
“I’m just happy that it’s not something more severe,” Arcia said. “We’re just going to take it day by day, just continue to evaluate it, keep doing whatever exercises I can to recover as quickly as possible and be able to get back out there and help the team.”
