Braves’ Sean Murphy to have season-ending hip surgery

Atlanta Braves catcher Sean Murphy will undergo season-ending surgery on his right hip later this week, but the team expects him to be ready for spring training.

The decision to have surgery came after an MRI on Monday revealed that Murphy has a labral tear in the hip.

He’s expected to be sidelined for about four months once Thursday’s procedure by Dr. Thomas Byrd is completed.

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“It’s been bothering him the last three years,” Atlanta president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos told reporters. “He said he would just grind through it and play through it and it would come and go. But in talking to Dr. Burke today, he was stunned he’d been playing the last three years with a significant tear.”

Murphy, an All-Star in 2023, is hitting .199 with 16 home runs and a .709 OPS in just 94 games this season. Rookie Drake Baldwin has had strong season behind the plate for Atlanta, with a .276 average, 15 homers and 64 RBIs in 107 games.

“He never made excuses, but there were days where he said, ‘I wouldn’t know if I could go, but I was going to fight through it,'” Anthopoulos said of Murphy. “But, it got to the point that I just couldn’t do it anymore. Even Dr. Byrd acknowledged this was only going to get worse. He’s tried to manage this the last three years. He should be a much better player once this is resolved.”