Milwaukee Brewers star outfielder Ryan Braun was scratched from the lineup prior to his team’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night.
The club’s official Twitter account reported the scratch before game time, citing neck spasms as the culprit:
Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reported that Braun was scratched from the fourth Milwaukee game of the season, opening the door for another Brewer to get his first career start on Friday night:
The news is both disappointing for Milwaukee fans and fortuitous for Arizona starting pitcher Wade Miley, who Braun has had some considerable success against so far in their pitcher-batter battles. The Brewer Nation had the tweet:
The 2011 National League MVP has a .313 career batting average and just hit his 203rd career home run against the Colorado Rockies in the opening series of the 2013 MLB season. So far, Braun has four hits, four RBI and the lone home run in 10 at-bats.
Braun dealt with Achilles, wrist and groin problems during the 2012 season but still played in 154 of the possible 162 regular-season games for Milwaukee. Braun finished second in his bid for back-to-back NL MVPs behind Buster Posey but had another strong season at the plate (.319 average, 41 HR, 112 RBI, .987 OPS).
It sounds like Braun’s absence from Friday night’s game is more of a precautionary move by team doctors, but we’ll monitor his status to ensure nothing more serious is going on.
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