ON SEAN MURPHY’S RECOVERY:
ALEX ANTHOPOULOS
I think the biggest thing with obliques is just you can’t do much, right? So you’re starting over and you have to just let it completely heal. You can’t really run. You can’t really throw, you can’t lift, you can’t swing. So you just need to shut down. But hopefully rehab assignments sometime next week would be the goal. And then at that point, you got to be able to get them built up to where you feel comfortable that he can go 9 innings in a game. Once you’re on a rehab assignment, then you’re right around the corner.
PITCHING IS CARRYING THE TEAM:
We definitely got off to a really good start and then we obviously had a rough trip on the West Coast. I think everyone would agree. It doesn’t feel like we’ve been clicking on all cylinders like we did in a lot of parts of last year, though we’re on pace to do similar things, which is incredible and it’s a credit to those guys. But there’s no doubt our bullpen and our rotation has been stellar and they’ve absolutely been the strength and we know what the offense can do. We just haven’t been there yet, so we can get both parts going. You really should be on a nice run.
WILL CHARLIE MORTON GET ANOTHER YEAR?
I have no idea. I mean, I know that he enjoys being here. We keep bringing him back and obviously we think, one, on the mound he’s really good. Obviously in the clubhouse, he’s off the charts and I think it’s just a conversation we’ve had with him. Here we know what makes sense for him and his family. I guess I’d say this is that you hope you’re in a position that guys are performing, guys are healthy and you’re in that position to have that conversation. That means things are going well.
WHAT THEY SEE IN RAY KERR:
He’s a lefty with really good stuff. He’s got an option. So we’ve got the flexibility to send him up and down and we’ve got a lot of years of control. Having gone through the last few trade deadlines and trying to get left-handed relievers, it’s hard. It’s expensive. We have a chance to have a guy for years and years and years and we’ve got the roster flexibility as well that if we need the option and it just made a whole lot of sense for us.
LATEST ON AUSTIN RILEY:
Hopefully back soon. We don’t know. We’re really taking it day by day at this point. I’m not, you know, from a performance standpoint, best defensively. I’ve seen him and I think he’s a phenomenal defender. I think taking his game up a whole other level and he’s got to win the Gold Glove this year. The way he’s playing and we’ll see here hopefully the next few days when we do get him back. I mean, if we don’t feel he’s improving enough, there’s always a scenario where he gets IL, but we think we dodged a bullet here and we think if we’ve given it a few days, he’s going to be all right.
ATLANTA – Atlanta Braves General Manager and President Alex Anthopoulos joined Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino to talk about the performance of Chris Sale last night, status of Sean Murphy and more
