Souza diagnosed with shoulder inflammation

The Nationals' roster may have suffered another hit this evening in Atlanta. In the second inning, right fielder Steven Souza Jr., who was filling in for Jayson Werth, attempted to catch Freddie Freeman's two-run homer. Instead Souza slammed into the right field wall which is actually a chain link fence. Souza stayed in the game through the bottom of the inning, but was removed in the top of the third for Kevin Frandsen, due to shoulder inflammation. After the game manager Matt Williams said Souza jammed his left shoulder. "He's OK. He banged the wall pretty good," Williams said. "It was full speed into the wall. Shoulder's hurting." Souza was put through a series of tests on the field and it was determined the outfielder did not have a head injury. He tried to stay in the game, but felt the shoulder injury when he tried swinging in his next at-bat. "I was hoping it would keep going away, try to play through it," Souza said. "Once I got to swing, swinging aggravated it a little bit so I didn't want to start giving away ABs. ... I was trying to play for it and wait for it to come down, but it just didn't work out." Souza said a combination of the speed he was running at, plus the chain link fence is what caused the injury. "I knew the speed I was running in, I think that's what kind of scared me was the impact I was running at coming down," Souza said. "My head's fine, everything's fine. ... I jammed it pretty hard. Give it a couple days rest and I'll be OK." Souza did say playing with a chain link fence is different than playing with a padded wall. "It's just tough because when you're going full speed you can't plant your foot on chain link," Souza said. "It just kind of gets with your foot so you speed doesn't stop. You go up against a padded wall you can kind of climb up it, jump on it, but those chain links just keep with you so there's no slowing down." The team plans to re-evaluate Souza tomorrow. It is undecided if the Nats will need to make a roster move to replace Souza.