MILWAUKEE — For the Atlanta Braves http://www.giantsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-lorenzo-carter-jersey , the big question as they headed from a long three-game series in Yankee Stadium to Milwaukee concerns the status of star first baseman Freddie Freeman.

All indications are Freeman will play the opener of a four-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers, but it will not be official until the lineup card is posted Thursday afternoon at Miller Park.

“If you ask him, he’s going to say yes,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “But until we get there and see how it is, we won’t know. It was probably good that we got him out of there and started on some treatment.”

Freeman exited in the fourth inning of Thursday’s 6-2 loss to the New York Yankee Stadium with an upper right arm contusion. He was injured when he was hit in the third inning by CC Sabathia, and by pulling him early to get treatment, Freeman and the Braves hope the precautionary measure means he can play Thursday.

“Luckily, it didn’t hit my hand,” Freeman said. “I’ll take the elbow and a little soreness. As long as I have the strength in my arm tomorrow, I can deal with the pain.”

Atlanta is 4-2 on its 10-game trip. The Braves swept three games in St. Louis last weekend and took a 5-3, 11-inning victory over the Yankees on Monday before losing the last two games.

“I thought we handled ourselves really well,” Snitker said. “We won a really tough game the first night, we put ourselves in a position to win today and today here we come again. The guys never quit. They know they can play with anybody and it’s a good sign.”

Milwaukee (51-35) is the first team in the National League to reach 50 wins after completing a three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins with a 3-2 win on Wednesday.

Brad Miller and Nate Orf played roles in three close wins as Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell is employing a mix-and-match approach at shortstop. He is using that strategy while remaining optimistic that shortstop Orlando Arcia will rediscover his offensive stroke at Triple-A Colorado Springs and rejoin Milwaukee for a playoff push.

Miller has gotten off to a good start with the Brewers. He extended his hitting streak to nine games Wednesday and has a hit in 10 of 12 games since joining the team, with a pair of home runs.

Orf was batting .307 with an .875 OPS when he was summoned Monday from Triple-A and recorded his first career hit with a solo home run against the Twins.

Both are immediate offensive upgrades to Arcia, who was slashing .197/.231/.482 but remained in the regular lineup because of his defensive ability.

While Miller saw extensive action at the position earlier in his career and Orf has spent most of the season there at Colorado Springs http://www.giantsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-b.j.-hill-jersey , neither player is a natural shortstop so Counsell was prepared to sacrifice defense to shore up the bottom of the order.

“When we sent Orlando down, we had multiple players on the roster who aren’t true shortstops so we’re trying to find guys who can play shortstop and who can kind of fill in at shortstop,” he said. “I don’t think we have an answer, but this is how we’re going to try it.”

A more stable solution could be coming soon. Tyler Saladino was on a roll before suffering a severe ankle sprain on May 29.

In 16 games with the Brewers, he batted .324 with three home runs and eight RBIs while playing defense well enough to make it possible for Milwaukee to send Arcia down a first time on May 25.

Saladino has been rehabbing for the last week and could rejoin the team in the next few days.

“Tyler will be back soon and will end up having some of the shortstop duties,” Counsell said. “We’ll sit down here soon and figure that out.”

The right-handed hitting Orf is likely to get the starting nod Thursday when the Brewers face Braves left-hander Max Fried.

Fried (1-2, 2.55 ERA) returned to the rotation last week when Brandon McCarthy was placed on the disabled list and struck out 11 over 6 2/3 innings and earned his first victory of the season as Atlanta beat the Cardinals in St. Louis.

Fried remained with the team after his last outing but didn’t learn for sure that he’d get another start until Wednesday morning. He’s looking forward to getting his first taste of meaningful action as the two winningest teams in the National League face off for the first time this season.

Milwaukee counters with right-hander Jhoulys Chacin (6-3, 3.71) who bounced back from his worst outing of the season to hold the Cincinnati Reds to a run over five innings while striking out nine his last time out.

Signed to a two-year contract over the winter, Chacin has been a stabilizing force in the Brewers’ rotation. He leads the staff with 18 starts and 97 innings his season.

Chacin has pitched well against Atlanta throughout his career, posting a 3.94 ERA in six previous starts. Due to a lack of run support in those contests, is just 1-4 lifetime against the Braves.

The slumping Chicago White Sox are playing a team that didn’t give up on its season despite a terrible start, so maybe they decided that was a pretty good strategy to adopt.

The White Sox could have easily given up on their Tuesday night game against the surging Cincinnati Reds despite falling behind 4-0 before they’d gotten an out and 7-2 following Adam Duvall’s three-run homer in the fifth inning.

And given up on the series, too, since the Reds beat them 5-3 on Monday for their 15th victory in a span of 20 games, the National League’s best record since June 10. The Reds also were 7-1 in interleague games.

Instead http://www.giantsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-kyle-lauletta-jersey , the White Sox managed to tie it first at 7-all on a Leury Garcia pinch-hit RBI single in the eighth and at 8-all on Avisail Garcia’s second home run of the game and third of the series, in the ninth.

The White Sox finally broke through to win it 12-8 in the 12th on Yoan Moncada’s bases-full triple that right fielder Brandon Dixon brought back over the wall to prevent a homer but couldn’t keep in his glove, and Yolmer Sanchez’s RBI triple — both off reliever Jackson Stephens.

“The pitch was up and in but I was able to put the barrel on it and get a triple,” said Moncada, who had a three-hit night after coming in with a .191 average in his previous 44 games. “Little by little, the work I’ve been putting in day in and day out, I’ve been feeling better (at the plate).”

Well before the 12th, the White Sox began their comeback as Daniel Palka hit a two-run homer in the fourth, then teamed with Garcia to homer in the sixth. Garcia has a 13-game hitting streak, and is 14-for-30 with four homers and six RBIs in his last six games.

Now, after winning for only the second time in six contests and the sixth time in 19 games, the White Sox are in position to take the series if they can win Wednesday night at Great American Ball Park. White Sox right-hander Dylan Covey (3-3, 4.82 ERA) will oppose Reds right-hander Sal Romano (4-8, 5.30) in a matchup of pitchers who haven’t faced the opposing team before.

Covey is in a major slump, going 0-2 with an elevated 12.71 ERA with 12 walks and three strikeouts over his last three starts — this after he was 2-0 with a 1.00 ERA in his first three starts in June. His last time out http://www.jetsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-chris-herndon-jersey , he surrendered four home runs and eight earned runs in 2 1/3 innings of a 11-3 loss to the Texas Rangers on Friday.

“I made a couple of mistakes they capitalized on,” Covey told reporters afterward. “For the most part I was throwing good pitches. They were just taking the borderline ones and were all over everything that was in the zone. I don’t have an explanation.”

Manager Rick Renteria did.

“I think there were probably a lot of pitches left over the center of plate,” he said.

Or exactly the kind of pitches the White Sox jumped on Tuesday while getting 15 hits in only their second extra-inning win of the season, as compared to three losses. By winning, the White Sox avoided falling to a season-worst 27 games below .500.

The Reds have put together a string of improbable victories while starting to turn their season around after being 3-15 and 8-27. But this was a game in which they couldn’t hold a succession of leads — 4-0, 7-2, 8-7 — as they played more like they did in April.

“It got away from us late, but that’s a good offensive baseball team,” Reds interim manager Jim Riggleman said. “Garcia’s a bear to deal with right now and he got us. … But we had a big-enough lead that we should have put it away in nine (innings).”

The Reds wasted a pair of two-run homers in the first by NL batting leader Scooter Gennett and NL RBIs leader Eugenio Suarez, plus Duvall’s three-run shot and a timely play by Billy Hamilton in which he scored the go-ahead run in the eighth on a ground ball to shortstop against a drawn-in infield.

“(But) we’ve been playing too good of baseball to get hung up on one game,” Reds starting pitcher Anthony DeSclafani said. “I don’t think this game is going to affect us one bit.”

Romano has pitched well in three of his last four starts, with a June 24 outing against the Cubs in which he gave up five runs in five innings being the only exception. He gave up only three runs over 20 innings in the other three starts.

White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu (sore ankle) is expected back in the lineup after sitting out Tuesday for precautionary reasons.