Chipper Jones will be retaining his major league-leading .420 batting average for the next couple of days, but not the way he wanted to do it: He expects to miss the first two games of the upcoming road trip with a small tear and some bleeding in his right quad.
The 10-day, 10-game, four-city road trip that begins in Chicago on Tuesday includes a snow-out make-up game in Colorado sandwiched between interleague series against the Angels and Rangers. Jones's quad has been sore since the original series in Colorado; he first injured it there running to second base on April 9.
Despite how well things have been going, Jones is something less than shocked at this turn of events.
"Nothing surprises me in this clubhouse anymore," he says. "It's just another bad blow."
Although the quad has been sore since he strained it in Colorado, he really felt it a few steps out of the box on a 6-3 groundout in the seventh inning in Saturday night's 6-2 loss to the Phillies.
The injury won't prevent him from swinging the bat to keep his stroke and eye in groove while he's taking daily treatment for the quad.
"We'll see how it feels after the off day (Monday)," he says. "Probably get a couple days of treatment. Won't do anything (Sunday) or (Monday). We'll see how I feel when I get to the park in Chicago."
How about pinch hitting?
"It's possible, I guess. Bottom line is, as soon as it feels better where I can run down the baseline relatively pain-free or effectively, then I'll get back in there."
PHILLIES 6, BRAVES 3: The Braves lost late again to go 0-3 against the Phillies in this series. Jorge Campillo pitched another good 5 1/3 innings, and Will Ohman followed with two scoreless innings, but over-used Blaine Boyer surrendered three runs in the top of the ninth.
