Braves will go for their fifth straight victory on Tuesday when they are hosted to St. Louis Cardinals, but Atlanta will not have its recovery ace on Haugen.
Atlanta opened the three-game series with a 7-6 upcoming victory on Monday and left St. Louis his fifth straight loss.
Braves had planned to give Spencer struggling his second start since returning from Tommy John Surgery. But the right hand must be placed back on the injured list after maintaining a right hamstrings tribe before Monday’s game.
“He just played catch. It wasn’t something accelerated or strenuous,” said Atlanta -Manager Brian Snitker. “It’s just a freak thing. You can do everything right – which he does – and still has something to happen.”
The severity of the injury will not be known until fighting is evaluated on Tuesday.
In his absence, Braves will go with a bullpen game. They did not announce a starter immediately after the opener of the series.
St. Louis will use the right hand Andre Pallante (2-1, 3.22 era). He comes from a loss to New York Mets on Thursday, when he allowed four runs on seven hits with two strikes in six rounds. Pallante allowed all runs in the second round and then settled to retire 12 of the next 13 battles.
“I did a few things towards the end,” Pallante said afterwards. “I liked how I mixed my seats and drove. I started loosening a bit. I got a little more speed on my lowering. Everything was a little sharper.”
Pallante has made five career performances, but only one of them a beginning, against Atlanta, went 0-1 with a 12.15 era over 6 2/3 rounds.
Brave’s crime produced two more homers on Monday and has hit 23 in the last 13 matches. After meeting only six homers in their first nine matches, Braves is now fourth in the National League with 29 home purchases.
Austin Riley continues to party against St. Louis pitching. He met his sixth Homer, his seventh in his last 12 matches against Cardinals and his 10th career long ball against St. Louis.
St. Louis received lots of crimes from the bottom of the order on Monday. Nolan Gorman, Pedro Pages and Victor Scott II combined to go 7-for-12 with four runs and three RBI. It was a homecoming for Scott, who grew up in suburban Atlanta and had never played against Braves.
Pages and Scott led to a three-run-rally in the ninth round that almost deleted a four-run lead. The Cardinals had a runner at first when Nolan Arenado finished the game on a soft grounder in front of the plate.
“If you remove yourself from the result, which is what I am trying to do right now, the guys build against something that is good,” St. said Louis Manager Oliver Marmol, who was thrown out in the eighth round when they were about to change the jug. “But to be on the losing side of it again it’s just frustrating. There were some really good bats to come within one, but again, good baseball.”
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