He's baaaaaaack!
Well, he's most likely back. And according to this story from Braves beat writer Mark Bowman, Braves Country should expect J-Hey in the lineup for Wednesday night's game against the Mets. Here's a blurb from the article:
According to a baseball source, Heyward planned to tell the Braves he was ready to play Wednesday night's game against the Mets at Turner Field. The 21-year-old right fielder will likely need to first prove he is ready by taking some swings and running in the outfield.
Heyward said multiple times he would not return to baseball until his shoulder was completely healed, and seeing as he flew up to Indianapolis just to play two Minor League rehab games, he must be feeling pretty good. With the offense struggling to consistently score runs for the past two weeks, we could really use his big bat in the lineup.
Something to keep an eye on will be where Heyward hits in the lineup. He (controversially) started the year batting sixth which drew the ire of fans everywhere, but was then moved up to second after a few weeks. The Braves offense took off after the lineup change, just as it did in 2010 with J-Hey changing his spot in the batting order. One would assume Heyward would return to the second spot in the lineup, but with Dan Uggla finally showing signs of like, does Fredi Gonzalez dare take Uggla out of a spot he's been so successful at?