Freeman fine after collision with Dunn

CHICAGO -- Freddie Freeman had just gotten back into a game for the first time on Friday night when he nearly got hurt again.

After missing the final game before the All-Star break plus sitting out the All-Star Game because of a jammed left thumb, Freeman didn't start in Friday night's 6-4 win against the White Sox. He entered the game in the eighth inning as a defensive replacement for Joey Terdoslavich and wound up in a collision with 6-foot-6, 285-pound Adam Dunn on a close play at first for the inning's second out.

"It was just one of those plays," Freeman said. "I'm right in the baseline, so I knew I was going to probably be getting hit, but I just had to make that pick. I'll take the brunt of [the blame for] it."

He also appeared to take Dunn's knee in his back during the collision, which sent Freeman and Dunn tumbling to the ground after the out was recorded. The initial fear was about his jammed thumb, but Freeman -- who started at first on Saturday afternoon -- said he's fine. He didn't even check it afterward.

"Nope, if I'm out there, I'm not even going to think about it," Freeman said. "That's where I'm at right now. I feel great. It's not 100 percent and I don't think it's going to be 100 percent, but it's good enough to play through it."

Considering nobody got hurt on the play, the 6-foot-5, 225-pound Freeman was able to joke about it a day later.

"Of course [it happened on] the first play … but we're all good," he said. "I look in the dugout and I see Bubba [athletic trainer Jeff Porter] and just his face is like a ghost went across his face, like, 'Of course that would happen,' but Adam's OK. I made sure he was fine, because you know he's going to take the brunt of it -- because I'm so big. He's a huge man. He just asked if I was all right and I asked if he was OK, because he fell, too."