This one hurts

In case you missed it, Jason Heyward was nailed in the right jaw by a Jon Niese fastball during yesterday's game in New York.  The jaw was fractured in two places, and he'll be on the shelf for at least a month, perhaps even the rest of the regular season.  Four weeks from today puts him back in time for the September 20-22 series in Chicago against the Cubs.  Six weeks from today is October 3, just in time for the first round of the NLDS. 

The loss of Heyward is an incalculable, devastating blow to the Braves' offense.  Since June 9, he's hitting .291/.373/.495 (BA/OBP/SLG), but he has been even better than that during the recent hot-streak.  His performance on the field and on the basepaths has been equally impressive.  He is the most dynamic player on this team, and his work in the second half of the season was making everyone forget about the first half.  It's a real shame to see him go down as he seemed to be hitting a zenith.

Compounding the issue is the fact that by the time he is ready to come back, the minor league season will be finished.  He may go to the instructional league for a few days just to get warmed up, but it will be hard to go from cold to full-speed in a week.  One silver-lining in all of this is that he theoretically should be able to perform baseball activities sooner rather than later, considering the injury occurred on a part of his body that he doesn't use to exert strenuous amounts of energy.  To put it another way, a leg injury precludes one from running until it's fully-healed, and thusly, one is at the mercy of the leg.  The same can be said for the arm and throwing.  Obviously the head is infinitely more important than both of those in the grand scheme of things, but when it comes to baseball, it doesn't see as much action.

Going back to 2002, the Braves have averaged 14.7 trips to the DL per season, most of them being of the 15-day variety.  The main outliers were 2004 when they only sent eight all season, and the 2006 and 2011 seasons which saw them send 17 each time.  Heyward marks the 19th Brave to make a trip to the DL this season, and seven of those trips have been season-ending, not including Jason's.  And they still have the best record in baseball by three games.   Go figure.

Speaking of the best record, losing Jason makes that much more interesting.  The Dodgers haven't lost a game since the beginning of July, and St. Louis and Pittsburgh are hanging tough too, as is Cincy, albeit to a lesser extent.  That race is of the utmost importance as it guarantees the Braves home-field advantage in the NLDS against the winner of the one-game playoff.  It was never going to be a slam-dunk, but now it's a little too interesting.