By Mark Bowman | 12:45 a.m. EDT
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ATLANTA — The thought of explaining one of the craziest plays of the young season seemed less important when it was revealed it resulted in Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud suffering his final concussion.
“It’s not at all something to fiddle with when you get a punch in the brain like that,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
After Saturday night’s 4-1 loss to the Padres at Truist Park, Snitker said d’Arnaud will be placed on the seven-day injury list. Chadwick Tromp is expected to be promoted from Triple-A Gwinnett to now act as a replacement for Gold Glove’s catch Sean Murphy.
d’Arnaud was sent home after being diagnosed with a concussion at the stadium. He was not taken to a hospital for further tests.
Suffering a second straight loss for the first time this season certainly wasn’t as troubling for Atlanta as losing d’Arnaud, who was injured in the second of the two collisions he was involved in in the fourth inning. As he lunged left to tag Rougned Odor, d’Arnaud was knocked back when his head made contact with what appeared to be Odor’s left thigh or hip.
Odor wanted to slide headfirst before realizing this might have resulted in a head-to-head clash with d’Arnaud.
“It was going to be 100 percent ugly,” Odor said. “It’s part of the game. You’re just trying to score in this situation. I was hurt like this two years ago. Same game. I hurt my knee. I was third and I would slide to home plate and all that [catcher] was in the middle of the plate.”
Confusion ensued as many veteran baseball folks tried to figure out what had just happened. Smell didn’t touch the plate, but Ha-Seong Kim did behind him. Two runs were originally put on the scoreboard for the Padres, but one was erased after the Braves appealed.
All of this was important and interesting, but Snitker’s main concern shifted when he saw how d’Arnaud was rated between the innings.
“Just look at this guy and you can tell,” Snitker said. “It’s his eyes and stuff.”
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d’Arnaud has hit .333 (11 of 33) with three doubles while serving as a catcher and designated batsman in the first nine games of the season. The Braves will miss his production, but the main concern is to ensure he recovers from this recent head trauma. It was reported that the catcher suffered the third concussion of his professional career in 2014 when he was hit by a backswing from Alfonso Soriano.
“I saw him being thrown around and I knew he was hit somewhere on his upper body,” Morton said of Saturday’s game. “When it comes to the vulnerable part of a person’s body, the most important thing is their health.”
The Braves suffered a second straight loss because they were stunned by Michael Wacha, who had a career-high 10 strikeouts in six scoreless innings. Morton gave up three runs (two earned) over five innings, although it initially appeared his line would last four runs.
“I had no idea what was going on,” Morton said.
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The confusion ensued when Braves first baseman Matt Olson set up Trent Grisham’s one-out grounder in the fourth and threw it to d’Arnaud, who grabbed a right before jumping back left to tag Odor, not immediately noticing that the throw had dodged his glove.
The smell went far to avoid the label and missed the plate. Returning to touch it with the ball at the backstop, Ha-Seong Kim crossed the plate. Odor then touched the plate, raising a question about what should be decided once the leading runner was overtaken.
“There is no passing at this point,” said home plate umpire Chad Fairchild. “[Odor] until an appeal game he is presumed to have touched the plate [is] made. If there hadn’t been an appeal game, he would have scored.”
Fairchild then explained why Kim was given the run after the Braves submitted their successful appeal.
“Once a trailing runner touches the plate, no leading runner can come back and touch a missed plate,” Fairchild said.