Ryan Braun 'cautiously optimistic' about thumb

PHOENIX -- Ryan Braun arrived in Milwaukee Brewers camp this spring feeling a little uncertain. That's a major step forward from last spring, when he showed up feeling awfully besieged.

Last February, Braun had barely unpacked his stuff when he did a mass interview in conjunction with his return from a 65-game PED suspension. Then he turned his attention to a position switch from left field to right field and some early concerns over a lingering thumb injury.

Braun is in a more serene state this spring. His wife, Larisa, gave birth to their first child, daughter Celine Elysse, in September. He's better acquainted with the nuances of right. And while he will never fully escape the Biogenesis cloud, he's in a lot better place than Alex Rodriguez is right now.

That leaves the thumb injury. A few days after the regular season, Braun underwent a cryotherapy procedure, which involved inserting a needle into the base of his right thumb to freeze a damaged nerve.

PED skeptics are going to think what they want to think, but Braun's thumb injury appears to have played a significant role in his power drop-off in 2014. He hit only 19 homers in 530 at-bats, while slugging a career-low .453. He slugged .597 on his way to winning the NL Most Valuable Player award in 2011 and .595 while finishing second to San Francisco's Buster Posey in the 2012 MVP balloting.

"As a hitter, the two things you really need to be successful are your eyes and your hands," Braun said on a rainy Monday at Maryvale Baseball Stadium. "Whenever you have an issue with either of those two things, it makes an already very challenging game that much more challenging.

"The big challenge is, I couldn't really use my top hand. As soon as I made contact my top hand was irrelevant, so I was trying to stay inside a lot of balls and take an inside-out swing and kind of filet it to right field."

After finishing sixth in the NL with 650 runs scored in 2014, the Brewers are dealing with some minor issues and changes this spring. Catcher and 2014 MVP candidate Jonathan Lucroy will miss much of spring training with a hamstring injury -- although the Brewers hope he'll be ready by Opening Day. New first baseman Adam Lind is transitioning to the NL after playing nine seasons in Toronto, and third baseman Aramis Ramirez is another year older and closer to retirement at age 36. A healthy, productive Braun would take a big weight off everybody's mind.

"He's in a better place, coming in with more certainty," said manager Ron Roenicke. "We'll see what happens with the thumb when he gets out there every day, taking a beating and getting jammed sometimes. Hopefully that won't be an issue and he'll get back to being the player we're used to having."

Braun expects to have a more definitive feel for how successful his offseason surgery was by the end of spring training. For the moment, he describes himself as both "very encouraged" and "cautiously optimistic." His eight seasons in the majors have taught him that a baseball season can take some very unexpected twists and turns.


(espn.com)