NOTE: This is pure speculation. We're not ones to come up with thoughts and claim that we have a source.
Last night, Brian McCann was injured and sent to the DL with an oblique injury after skying a ball to Marietta trying to throw out some Pirate.
McCann was hitting .306/.375/.514 behind the plate, and had the highest OPS of any Brave in the starting lineup - hitting 18 homers with a 144 OPS+.
But now he's out for the next two weeks, a stretch where the Braves play (after today and tomorrow's Pittsburgh games) entirely within their division (six with Florida, three with Washington, and three with New York).
The Braves were reportedly not in on Pence talks, but now that they've lost McCann's bat, they could replace it with Pence, hitting .308/.355/.468 (131 OPS+) and try to off-set that loss.
We have always maintained that it makes a heck of a lot more sense to go after Pence than Beltran, and maybe the Braves will come to the same conclusion. Come to Houston, Mike Minor...
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
