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WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC POOL TWO: MIAMIMarch 15, 2009Chipper JonesMIAMI, FLORIDA Q. What happened? CHIPPER JONES: I just had a reaggravation of the oblique today. It was a hard decision. I really wanted to play tonight, see if it would loosen up. But you know, it's to the point where it's bothering me just sitting around because I know it's a lot worse than it was first time around in Canada, and I just think I, as well as the brass in Atlanta, think it's probably better that we get back to Orlando and take care of it in-house as quickly as possible. Q. Realizing this is not the Braves' physician or your physician, but what is his diagnosis? What did he say in terms of seriousness? CHIPPER JONES: It's just a strain of the oblique. It's something you're going to have to get off of for four or five days and reevaluate and go from there. This is something you don't want lingering. If you can take care of it now, I certainly don't see there being any problems in going forward come April 1st, April 5th, whatever opening day is. But it's something that's really bugging me and progressively getting worse. So it's important to get it taken care of. Q. What's the difference between Canada and now? CHIPPER JONES: I felt it coming on in Canada, and this was pain. This was cutting-off-my-swing-type pain. It was impossible to extend out during BP and really juice the ball in the outer half, I had to cut myself off. Anything middle part of the plate in, I could hit fairly well, but I couldn't extend on the ball out over the plate, and that's a problem. Q. Opening day are you confident you're going to be all right? CHIPPER JONES: I hope so, as long as we take care of it now and we don't come back too soon and have it just linger. This is one of those things that can linger, especially for a switch-hitter. I'm no good if I'm not at 100 percent. Q. Was it hurting you last night, too? CHIPPER JONES: You know what, last night it didn't bother me much at all. You know, I had a little bit of a lingering effect from Canada, but it wasn't anything that really I said I need to sit down. But today it was a couple of the guys saw me grab it after a swing, maybe second to last round in the cage, and they pulled me aside and said, "Don't mess with this." It's worse than it was in Canada. Q. What do you say to people who are critical of this event because of the risk of injury, guys playing harder than they normally would at this time of year? CHIPPER JONES: I don't know that it wouldn't have happened in Orlando. We're at the point in spring training where we're starting to extend numbers of at-bats and numbers of innings that we play in spring training, so I'm not going to say that it wouldn't have happened. When I take an at-bat in spring training, I'm no less aggressive than I would have been here because I want to try to get something out of each and every at-bat. I think myself and Dustin Pedroia will tell you that this can happen at any point. I mean, Dustin did his doing extra work, which is stuff we do all day every day in spring training anyway. I'm not a big proponent of blasting the WBC because somebody gets hurt. Q. Obviously your comments in Toronto, you wanted to stay in and fight through this, so how tough is this? CHIPPER JONES: It's very tough to look the guys in the eyes and have to walk out of that clubhouse. We've made a lot of good friends here, and we're having a good time. We feel like we can advance, and knowing that I'm not going to be able to be a part of that is disappointing, but I've got to look at the bigger picture. Q. You're going back tonight? CHIPPER JONES: I am. Q. How much since the original thing have you been able to work on the right-handed swing, or has it pretty much been all left-handed swings since then? CHIPPER JONES: Mostly left-handed, but there's not a day that goes by that I don't do some work right-handed. I mean, that's why I'm surprised today. I mean, I did a lot of work in the cage before batting practice on both sides of the plate, and I felt fine in the batting cage. It was just one little odd swing that I took, and I'm right back to square one. Q. Did you get a chance to say goodbye to your teammates? CHIPPER JONES: I did, yeah. Q. What did they say? CHIPPER JONES: You know, they were disappointed as much as I was, as we were yesterday when Dustin left. There's nobody that wants to be out there more than he and I. But unfortunately our bodies haven't allowed us to do it this time around. End of FastScripts |
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