Fried hurts left ankle, to be evaluated Thurs.

ATLANTA — Once a left ankle injury forced Max Fried to exit after the first inning of a 9-4 win over the Marlins on Wednesday night, the obvious question was whether he might be ready to start Game 1 of next week’s Wild Card Series.

“We’ll check him out tomorrow and go from there,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “I’m hoping everything is good. The preliminaries are good, but we’ll know more tonight.”

Fried was not available to talk with the media because he was taken to a facility away from the stadium for further evaluation.

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This is an issue the Braves will closely monitor as they prepare to enter the postseason with what was an already weakened rotation. For now, the hope is Fried’s early exit from his last regular-season start was a precautionary move to prevent him from further aggravating his left ankle, which he turned while fielding a bunt from Starling Marte.

Fried initially lobbied to remain in the game. But with the Wild Card Series just a week away, the Braves seemed to take the cautious route with their NL Cy Young Award candidate, who was on the injured list earlier this month because of lower back spasms.

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“He was like, ‘I’ll give it a try,’” Snitker said. “I said if you don’t know you can go, we’re not going to test it or screw around with it. That’s [the last thing] he needed, was to go out there and hurt his arm while trying to get by.”

Source:MLB.com