Jason Heyward Hoping for Wednesday Return

Jason Heyward expects to return to action tonight at Coors’ Field when the Braves take on the Rockies.

Heyward has been out with a bruised left foot since Sunday when he was hit by a pitch.  Heyward was originally in Atlanta’s lineup Monday, but reported to manager Fredi Gonzalez that he was unable to push off of the foot when running in the outfield.

At the time he was experiencing swelling and pain in the foot, but it only affected Heyward when he was running.  It improved yesterday to the point where the 21 year old thought he would be able to play, but Gonzalez decided to give Heyward another night off to rest the foot.

"“I let [Gonzalez] know before we got here that I wanted to play,” Heyward said before batting practice Tuesday. “He said he’d like for me to take another day, just to make sure. So I’m going to do everything today and run around on it, and play [Wednesday].”"

Heyward broke onto the scene last year, posting an OPS of .849 with 18 home runs and 72 RBI’s in 142 games with the Braves.  Those impressive numbers earned him a trip to the All-Star game as well as a second place finish in National League Rookie of the Year voting.

2011 hasn’t gone as smoothly for Heyward.  After starting out the season well enough, the right fielder had an awful May.  He hit the disabled list towards the end of that month and just returned for Atlanta in the middle of June.

On the year Heyward’s put up a line of .224/.319/.397.  The Braves hope that upon returning from his most recent setback, the youngster is able to rediscover his 2010 form.

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