Freeman day to day with right elbow soreness

WASHINGTON -- Asked about the sore right elbow that caused him to make an early exit from Friday night’s 5-0 win over the Nationals, Freddie Freeman provided the answer expected from a guy who has started all but four games the Braves have played since the start of 2018.

“It’s day to day,” Freeman said. “Just expect me to probably be in there tomorrow.”

Freeman jammed his elbow when he dove to his right to stop Yan Gomes’ grounder in the third inning. He immediately felt agitation from a bone spur that has occasionally bothered him over the past two years, but not necessarily to this extent.

“I’ve played through it,” Freeman said. “Just today, it was a little bit more than I expected. Now, it’s calmed completely down. I’m hoping when I wake up, I’ll be able to play tomorrow.”

Freeman played the remainder of the third inning and then did not take the field for the bottom of the fourth. The 30-year-old veteran received treatment during the remainder of the game and gave manager Brian Snitker reason to think he’ll be ready for Saturday afternoon’s game.

“We’ll just wait to see when he gets up,” Snitker said. “What do I expect from Freddie? That he’ll be hitting third in the lineup and playing first. I don’t know. I just talked to him. It feels good now and hopefully it does [tomorrow]. If it doesn’t, we’ll go with Plan B. But when you talk about expectations from Freddie, he’s going to play. That guy is a gamer.”

Freeman has been in the starting lineup for 307 of the 311 games the Braves have played from 2018-19. He understands there might be some value to resting at some point down the stretch. But even with Atlanta owning a 9 1/2-game division lead with 13 games remaining, he wants to finish the task before thinking about rest.

“You want to take care of business as quick as you can, so that if we need rest, we can take some rest here and there,” Freeman said.