Speaker 1: Guess who's back. Shady's back, actually, Freddie Freeman back in
Speaker 1: the Dodgers starting lineup. Freddie, thanks a lot for the time.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2: David.
Speaker 1: I've always had a special place in my heart for
Speaker 1: Freddie Freeman and Slim Shady, so that's why I went
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to answer that. David.
Speaker 1: Hey, it's great to see a smile on your face again.
Speaker 1: What's the last three days been like for you, because
Speaker 1: we all know you want to play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been tough. I think they're getting annoyed. Yesterday
Speaker 2: I was getting restless. But yeah, I got a doc
Speaker 2: and I talked Sunday night and he called me. And
Speaker 2: obviously I didn't play the way I wanted to play
Speaker 2: last week. Try to play three things and do the
Speaker 2: best I can, give everything I got, But they thought
Speaker 2: it was best to just give me a couple of
Speaker 2: days and try and you know, get some of the
Speaker 2: pain out of there. It's still fractured. It's not like
Speaker 2: it healed in three days. But I just wasn't able
Speaker 2: to do my routine last week. It was more of
Speaker 2: I take ten to fifteen swings and try to go
Speaker 2: get him at night. So the last few days I've
Speaker 2: been able to do full routines, so been able to
Speaker 2: practice like I want to practice, So we'll see if
Speaker 2: that translates into a game but able to do what
Speaker 2: I normally do on a game day the last couple
Speaker 2: of days, so hopefully that gives me a better opportunity
Speaker 2: to help the team.
Speaker 1: What about gripping the bat, I haven't had an opportunity
Speaker 1: to ask you about that.
Speaker 2: The crazy thing is, obviously it hurts the grip of bat,
Speaker 2: not as much as it did a few days ago
Speaker 2: and last week. But the most painful thing that I
Speaker 2: wasn't realizing was throwing. That was a ten out of
Speaker 2: ten last week in pain scale. I didn't realize that
Speaker 2: swinging gripping wasn't as bad. But obviously these last few
Speaker 2: days taking it off, I didn't do anything. Obviously Monday
Speaker 2: of the day off, and Tuesday I didn't do anything either.
Speaker 2: So we gave it two full days of no gripping
Speaker 2: and throwing, and then a little bit on Wednesday and
Speaker 2: then yesterday full day. So we'll do another full day
Speaker 2: today and hopefully everything is okay throughout the day and
Speaker 2: it's still you know, it still hurts, but it's not
Speaker 2: going to go away eight weeks for a fracture, so
Speaker 2: but the pain is a lot less than it was
Speaker 2: last week.
Speaker 1: How do you manage in as far as trying to
Speaker 1: splint it and also make throws and grip the bat.
Speaker 2: That was the hard thing. The first game that I've
Speaker 2: played with it, I had to turn a double play
Speaker 2: and almost through the ball into left field on the turn.
Speaker 2: And it was not because it hurt the throw, is
Speaker 2: because I had to splint on it. It was slipping out
Speaker 2: of that. So today I'm going to try and go
Speaker 2: with nothing, just because I don't want to throw a
Speaker 2: ball away. It's not like it hurts. It hurts the throw,
Speaker 2: but I can still control everything. It's just pain management.
Speaker 2: But I was a little worried that I will slip
Speaker 2: off the splint, So I'm going to try and take
Speaker 2: round balls and throw without it and see what the
Speaker 2: pain level is. Obviously, but if I have to splint,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to splin it, you know. I just
Speaker 2: got to be able to manage this thing and get
Speaker 2: through the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: Freddie Freeman is our guest in front of first pitch
Speaker 1: between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, Freddie, I don't want to
Speaker 1: try to get into your head, but how much were
Speaker 1: these last three days just as vital for a mental
Speaker 1: break because life is still going, still dealing with helping
Speaker 1: Max get better, Jason Hayward is no longer your teammate.
Speaker 1: How much of all that is part of the equation.
Speaker 2: I think that's what I try to take the most
Speaker 2: out of these three days. I think we all knew
Speaker 2: the finger wasn't going to be not fractured in three days.
Speaker 2: It was more of you know, life has taken a
Speaker 2: lot of toll on the last month, so I try
Speaker 2: to take as much and try to set the brain
Speaker 2: off as much as I possibly could. But you know,
Speaker 2: life is still going. You know, every day is you know,
Speaker 2: just trying to take care of Max and make sure
Speaker 2: he's okay, take care of the other boys, make sure
Speaker 2: Chelsea's okay, make sure everyone's okay. So try and put
Speaker 2: myself on the back burner in these situations. But there's
Speaker 2: a lot going on in life. You know, I get
Speaker 2: to be here in Arizona, away from the family, but
Speaker 2: I get to play baseball, So try and be as
Speaker 2: happy as we possibly can, and you know, I try
Speaker 2: to take the mental break. You know, I'm one to
Speaker 2: fight through everything and play through everything, but sometimes life
Speaker 2: kind of lets you know that you need to take
Speaker 2: a break for a second. And you know, I don't
Speaker 2: know if it was more of the finger fracture they
Speaker 2: wanted me to give off for just you know, the
Speaker 2: last month and a half has been pretty hard on
Speaker 2: the Freeman family. So I took the three days as
Speaker 2: much as I could as resting my finger, but also
Speaker 2: trying to get my mind a break too.
Speaker 1: I'm sure obviously baseball is an escape for you, like
Speaker 1: so many guys, how much of this series is going
Speaker 1: to be a great escape to play meaningful games in September?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is what we set out to do.
Speaker 2: We all knew this division was gonna be tough at
Speaker 2: the start of it. Every team. You know, you can
Speaker 2: run into any team and that they could play good
Speaker 2: against you. We knew that Diamonbacks went and got better
Speaker 2: than the offseason, same with the Padres. So this is
Speaker 2: what you look forward to as an athlete and the
Speaker 2: competitors to compete. And you know, I think I don't
Speaker 2: even know the standings. I think it's three or four
Speaker 2: or five games we're ahead, so big series. We got
Speaker 2: our guys going, we're getting back to full health and
Speaker 2: hopefully we've just played good series.
Speaker 1: All right, Freddy, thanks a lot for the time. We're
Speaker 1: all very happier, Bet and for a number of different reasons,
Speaker 1: and obviously the city of Los Angeles still wrapping you
Speaker 1: and your family in their arms. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, David very much. Thank you