ATLANTA -- Joe Jiménez took a meaningful step back toward a big league mound on Friday, even if his return may come too late to matter for the Braves’ postseason picture.
The veteran right-hander threw live batting practice at Truist Park, a session that marked another sign his long rehab is trending in the right direction after a brutal stretch of knee surgeries and uncertainty about whether he’d pitch in the majors again.
“He’s come a long way,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “He hasn’t pitched in a Major League game in two years.
At times, I think he lost hope of ever doing it again. I think that’s behind him.
I think there’s hope again.”
Jiménez’s road back has been anything but straightforward. He pitched in both games of a doubleheader against the Mets on the final day of the 2024 regular season, then underwent surgery a few weeks later to repair torn cartilage in his left knee. Since then, he has had two more procedures on that same knee, including the most recent one in March.
“I'm grateful to be in here, just to be in this clubhouse still, have a uniform and say that I'm still here,” Jiménez said. “At one point, I thought that it was done.”
Friday offered him something he hasn’t had in a long time: a real baseball setting that felt close to the job he’s been trying to get back to. As he jogged from the bullpen to the mound, the stadium speakers played Lil Wayne’s “Let It All Work Out,” a song he leaned on throughout rehab.
Jiménez worked through a simulated five-hitter live BP, with Dominic Smith and Brewer Hicklen stepping in as the batters. When it was over, Weiss was among the many people who hugged him after what was clearly an emotional checkpoint.
What comes next isn’t clear. Weiss said he doesn’t know Jiménez’s next assignment, though the reliever could wind up in an instructional league game with the Minor League season almost finished.
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