Taking a look at Charlie Culberson’s career numbers, the casual baseball fan probably won’t see anything special. Career .249 hitter, 23 Home Runs, 110 RBIs over the span of 7 years. To the naked eye, he’s pretty average.
Braves fan know Charlie Culberson is about the farthest thing from average.
Charlie was relatively unknown to a lot of Braves fan when he was sent to Atlanta in 2018 in the Matt Kemp trade along with Brandon McCarthy, Adrian Gonzalez and Scott Kazmir. Charlie got some pinch hits here and there, but shortly after became a fan favorite due to his versatility, uncanny likeness to Dansby Swanson, and timely hitting. Charlie crushed a walk off bomb against the Mets on May 28th, and then repeated the feat against another division rival in Washington on June 3rd. Charlie clutch was born. He even pitched against Colorado last season and twice again this season against Washington and San Diego.
I’ve never heard a bad word about Charlie Culberson. Mike Foltynewicz even went as far to say he wishes he could be as good of a father as him. He changed his number from 16 to 8 to help welcome Brian McCann back to Atlanta. Charlie shows up, does whatever the team needs him to do, and does it well. You can tell he’s a favorite in the locker room, choking up Brian Snitker when he started talking about his injury. Losing a guy with so much heart and versatility is just demoralizing, especially with such a gruesome injury.
We all know what happened, I don’t need to recap.
The team announced that Charlie has multiple facial fractures and is probably out for a while. He’s being evaluated back in Atlanta tomorrow. The most important thing in the world is making sure his sight and other facial functions are okay, but reports have been encouraging this far and he looks “better than expected” according to Brian Snitker.
The players rallied around him last night, scoring 9 runs after the incident. Hopefully that’s a mark for the rest of the season. Get well soon Charlie, we’re wishing you the best and hope we get to see you on the diamond again.