Whit Merrifield pedals false hope after latest injury update

The Atlanta Braves were dealt a major injury scare on Tuesday with Whit Merrifield getting hit in the head by a pitch. Fortunately, he avoided the worst and was back in the lineup for Friday's series opener against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Merrifield was slotted into the No. 2 hole and stepped up to the plate three times but he did not last the entire game as a foul ball hit off of his foot knocked him out prematurely.

Braves fans hoped that the team had avoided the worst after X-rays didn't show a fracture, but follow-up tests did. This is just the latest major injury this team is going to have to overcome - or so we thought.

Somehow, Merrifield thinks he's not only going to beat the six-week timetable he was given, but he thinks he's going to shatter it. That seems, well, ambitious.

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Whit Merrifield sets himself up for failure with extremely ambitious return target date

Merrifield was given a six-week timetable that would end his regular season and knock him out for the beginning of the postseason if Atlanta gets there. He plans on returning by the time their series with the Los Angeles Dodgers begins. For those keeping track at home, that series is set to begin six days from this writing. Not weeks, days.

I don't know about you, but it's really difficult to believe that a player is going to come back from a fractured foot in six days and beat a six-week timeline by five weeks and one day. That, again, seems very ambitious.

Let's say Merrifield actually does somehow return to their lineup for that Dodgers series. How confident can the Braves possibly be that he'll be healthy enough to play? I get that every game is crucial for a Braves team currently tied for the third Wild Card spot in the NL, but is Merrifield at, say, 50 percent good enough to actually be playing when they need to be at their best daily?

This is a really tough situation for Atlanta as they're already without Ozzie Albies, their usual starter at the keystone, perhaps for the remainder of the regular season. Injuries have decimated this team unlike any other, and Merrifield is the latest example.

Having to rely on a guy like Luke Williams to play regularly is far from ideal, but again, that has to be better than Merrifield six merely a week after fracturing his foot, right?