Batting Cage Betrayal: Braves' Lane Thomas Sidelined in Absolute Worst Way

ATLANTA -- Leave it to baseball to deliver a gut punch where you least expect it. Braves outfielder Lane Thomas is heading to the 15-day injured list after injuring himself in the batting cage before Thursday's series finale against the Tampa Bay Rays. Yes, the batting cage. The place where swings are supposed to get grooved, not broken.

Thomas was set to start, then suddenly he wasn't. Manager Walt Weiss didn't sugarcoat the pre-game mayhem: "Lane was obviously a late scratch, right before the game. We had some chaos there."

The injury: an intercostal strain in his right side. That's the nasty, nagging kind of issue that turns every swing into a roll of the dice. For a 31-year-old who was acquired from Kansas City at the trade deadline to give the first-place Braves another right-handed bat, this is brutal timing.

The Numbers Haven't Been Kind Either

Since coming over, Thomas has been struggling to find his footing in Atlanta. He's hitting just .171 with one homer and three RBIs in 21 games with his new team. Now he gets an unwanted pause to heal up while the Braves roll on.

In the series finale, Brewer Hicklen got the emergency nod in right and went 0-for-2 in Atlanta's 3-1 victory. The Braves survived this one—but losing a trade-deadline weapon to a cage mishap is the kind of wild, annoying plot twist nobody saw coming.