Whit Merrifield hasn’t yet played for the Braves but he’s had an eventful first two days

ATLANTA – Whit Merrifield, a three-time All-Star who was released by the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies on July 12 and was signed by the Atlanta Braves on Monday morning, was hurt when a grounder smashed the end of his right middle finger during a pregame workout Monday afternoon, and attended a players-only meeting Tuesday with the injury-plagued Braves scuffling.

“Kind of started on a rocky note yesterday when his finger exploded,” said Braves manager Brian Snitker, who had hoped to have Merrifield in the lineup at second base Tuesday night, before the team’s medical and training staff determined that it was best not to have him make any throws so soon after getting four stitches to repair a rather grotesque wound.

Turns out it wouldn’t have mattered if he was ready because the game against the Cincinnati Reds was postponed by rain and will be made up as part of a split doubleheader Wednesday, at 12:20 p.m. and 6:05 p.m. Braves All-Star Chris Sale, who was scheduled to start Tuesday, will pitch the second game Wednesday, and Allan Winans is up from Triple A to start the first game.

“It’s pretty gnarly,” Merrifield said of his finger, which was covered in a translucent latex sheath Tuesday, through which the wound wasn’t clearly visible. But he later showed me a photo on his iPhone of the uncovered finger, and it did, indeed, look gnarly.

“It shredded the skin underneath the nail,” said 35-year-old Merrifield, a nine-year veteran who said he’s been hit many times by similar grounders but never had a result like this. “I got four stitches going through the nail into the finger, and they glued my nail back down to my finger.”

Yes, the stitches go through the fingernail into the finger.

“I’d never seen stitches in a nail before,” Snitker said, after looking at Merrifield’s finger Tuesday afternoon, after he tested it with some throws. “He tried (to play). They bandaged him up. It’s fine hitting.”

“Can’t make it up.”

Whit Merrifield arrived in Atlanta today after being signed to help cover injuries … then he gets injured taking a ball off a finger on his throwing hand while warming up. pic.twitter.com/b514rYkZ5j

— Bally Sports South (@BallySportsSO) July 22, 2024

 

Snitker said Merrifield was available Tuesday to hit or pinch-run — he led the majors with 45 steals in 2018 and had 26 last season with Toronto — but that they’d wait at least a day or two before playing him in the field.

He still hasn’t played an inning for the Braves, but Merrifield has been able to gauge the mood of the team between Monday night’s 4-1 loss to the Reds, discussions with new teammates and the 25-minute players-only meeting Tuesday at 4:40 p.m.

Players-only meetings have been a rarity in recent years for the Braves, but Merrifield downplayed it.

“I mean, team meetings happen throughout the course of the year,” he said. “When you get somewhere, you feel a vibe, and it’s just fine here. Just in the course of the season, going through some things, everybody does. What are we, 10 games over .500? So, the fact that we’re going through it and 10 games over .500 is a pretty good thing. We’ll get through it.”

Actually, they are nine over .500 (54-45) and were 8 1/2 games behind Philadelphia before the Phillies’ game Tuesday night at Minnesota. But his point was made.

It was an eventful couple of days for Merrifield, a North Carolina native who attended the University of South Carolina.

“Just a bad hop,” he said of the grounder that wrecked his finger, which he said was the last grounder he took. “Didn’t really think much of it. Happens all the time and you just kind of shake it off. But I looked down and it was covered with blood.”

Merrifield, a late bloomer who debuted with Kansas City in 2016 and stayed with the Royals until a trade to Toronto during the 2022 season, has played every position except shortstop, with the bulk of his 1,037 career starts coming at second base (677) and the outfield (339, including 78 in center).

He was an All-Star for Toronto in 2023 when he split time between left field and second base and hit .272 with 27 doubles, 11 homers and a .700 OPS that was 50 points below his previous career OPS, but still respectable. The Phillies signed him to a one-year, $8 million deal with plans to use him in a bench role.

After being an everyday player most of his career, he struggled in a backup role with the Phillies, batting .199 with a .295 slugging percentage in 174 plate appearances.

“It was a new role for me, and I just didn’t get off to a good start,” said Merrifield, who was a starting second baseman for the Royals in 2021, when he hit .277 with an MLB-leading 42 doubles, 10 homers, an AL-best 40 steals (in 44 attempts) and a .711 OPS in a majors-high 664 at-bats.

Three years later, he started out playing about half of the games for the Phillies, went 3-for-28 (.107) with no extra-base hits or RBIs in his first 10 games, and saw his playing time become even less frequent.

“And it felt like every time I got back in there, I was trying to go 4-for-4 with four homers to kind of get back on track,” he said. “And that’s not really a good way to approach game-in, game-out. I just couldn’t seem to get it going for whatever reason. It just didn’t seem like it was meant to be.”

He said his performance wasn’t an indication of where he was physically.

“The positives for me was that if you look at my speed numbers, strength numbers, those are all actually better than they have been in the past,” Merrifield said. “So physically, I feel like I’m in a good spot, actually better than I have been in previous years. Just some things baseball-wise that I need to iron out. And hopefully I can do that here.”

The Phillies released him and ate the rest of the contract, save for a prorated portion of the $740,000 MLB minimum that any team who signed him would pay him for time spent in the majors.

That team is the Braves, at least for now. He’s quite familiar with them.

“Growing up in North Carolina, I mean, TBS was always on,” Merrifield said. “I was more of a college sports guy growing up. That was just kind of my family dynamic. But I was always a huge fan of players, and Rafael Furcal, Andruw Jones, Chipper — those guys were guys I always tuned in to watch. So it’s an honor to wear the same uniform that they wore. With smaller names now on the back.”

He smiled. That was a reference to the Nike/Fanatics uniform snafu this year that led to complaints from players and fans around baseball about the universally unpopular tweaks made to uniforms.

The Braves will see what Merrifield can do. He should get plenty of playing time after a litany of injuries diminished Atlanta’s roster. The latest belongs to second baseman Ozzie Albies, who fractured his left hand Sunday and is out for approximately eight weeks. That was the impetus for the signing of Merrifield and the call-up of top shortstop prospect Nacho Alvarez Jr. Alvarez made his MLB debut Monday at second base and was in the lineup at third base Tuesday before the game was postponed.

Third baseman Austin Riley left Monday’s game in the ninth inning after his wife, Anna, went into labor with their second child. Beau Williams Riley was born at 12:34 a.m. Tuesday, and Riley will be on paternity leave until Thursday, when he’ll rejoin the Braves in New York for a four-game series against the Mets.

It’s possible, but seemed unlikely, that Merrifield would be cleared to play a position during Wednesday’s doubleheader.

“I was talking to him about going to South Carolina, how he probably grew up a Braves fan,” Snitker said. “Would have been nice, a good opportunity for him to get in there (Tuesday).”

During a five-season stretch with the Royals through 2021, Merrifield hit .292 with a 107 OPS+ and had per-162 game averages of 40 doubles, five triples, 16 homers, 36 steals and 721 plate appearances. (He played all 162 games in 2019 and 2021, all 60 in 2020.)

“I talked to a lot of people that have been around him, even guys in Philly,” Snitker said. “I think it was just more performance-type thing. The guys say he was a great teammate, all that, which we know. So, hopefully it’s a great opportunity for him.”

For any Braves followers who might be wondering if it feels strange for a player to move from one NL East team to its division rival within the same season, the answer is probably not what you might expect.

“I think that’s more of a ‘you guys’ conversation than our conversation,” Merrifield said, referring to reporters. “This fraternity is pretty unique, as far as players in this league and bouncing around from team to team.”

Soon after it was announced that he’d signed with the Braves, Merrifield said he had a FaceTime conversation with Kyle Schwarber and other Phillies while they were on their team bus in Minneapolis.

“They had just landed in Minnesota, so he FaceTimed me,” Merrifield said, smiling before adding, “Got to share some nice words to the boys on the bus and let them know that they were, uh, screwed is a polite way to say it. So it was fun.”

Yes, Merrifield was talking smack, warning them that the Braves were aiming to chase them down.

“I loved my time over there, I really did,” he said. “Hey, it didn’t work out. Just didn’t seem like it was meant to be, but hopefully it’s meant for me to be a Brave.”