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Steph Curry’s 36 points leads Warriors to sweep Spurs, 129-115

<p>ATLANTA &#8212; Sean Rodriguez, the Atlanta Brave, looks much like he did the past two years in Pittsburgh. The main differences may be the additional streaks of gray mixed in his long black hair and beard, byproducts perhaps of a winter during which Rodriguez and his family relocated in free agency and were involved in a harrowing car crash near their Miami home.</p><p>On Jan. 28, a stolen police cruiser T-boned the Rodriguez&#8217;s SUV and burst into flames. The driver, who had stolen the car minutes earlier, was killed. Rodriguez&#8217;s wife, Giselle, and two of their four children were hospitalized. The children&#8217;s injuries did not require surgery. Giselle sustained a fractured femur, tibial plateau and wrist and broke three ribs. Only recently has she begun to move around without a walker or wheelchair.</p><p>&#8220;Basically, she took the beating for the family,&#8221; Rodriguez said Monday before the Braves opened a four-game series against the Pirates. &#8220;She took one for the team. &#8230; She&#8217;s a true soldier. Not fazed by it at all. She even makes fun of herself when she&#8217;s walking. She&#8217;s something else.&#8221;</p><p>Rodriguez, 32, injured his left shoulder in the crash. He underwent rotator-cuff surgery in February and was expected to miss four to six months, likely the full season. Braves management gave Rodriguez the option of rehabbing in Florida, but he preferred to remain with his new team. He now is rehabbing from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at SunTrust Park.</p><p>&#8220;Then again, they&#8217;re expecting me to be out the whole year, and I&#8217;m not,&#8221; said Rodriguez, who reported his rehab is running ahead of schedule. &#8220;I told them that from Day One, &#8216;I&#8217;m going to be back. Don&#8217;t count me out just yet.&#8217; &#8220;</p><p>Rodriguez said he received &#8220;through-the-roof support&#8221; from his former Pirates teammates after the accident, a constant stream of encouragement from players, coaches and their wives. He said &#8220;every last one of them&#8221; dropped what they were doing and asked, &#8220;Do you need us to fly out there?&#8221; The Pittsburgh fans, he added, showed &#8220;a lot of love&#8221; to the Rodriguez family.</p><p>Rodriguez had a difficult time finding words to describe how his time in Pittsburgh impacted his career. He settled on these: &#8220;Catapulted. Trampoline effect.&#8221; He re-signed with the Pirates for $2.5 million last season as a super-utility player and a premium defender, and collected career-highs across the board: 18 home runs, 56 RBIs, .270 batting average and a .859 OPS.</p><p>With the camaraderie in Pittsburgh, he said, &#8220;two years felt like a lifetime over there.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I remember when (Josh Harrison) got hurt last year, and I got to play, I don&#8217;t think I had a bigger fan than him,&#8221; Rodriguez said. &#8220;That&#8217;s the kind of person he&#8217;s always been, but you don&#8217;t see that. Not in this game. Not nowadays, at least. Maybe back in the day. It&#8217;s something that needs to come back. It&#8217;s something that needs to be at the forefront of what a team is about.&#8221;</p><p>Rodriguez said he was &#8220;unbelievably grateful&#8221; general manager Neal Huntington and manager Clint Hurdle continued to give him regular starts even after the team fell from contention. He sailed into free agency and signed a two-year, $11.5 million deal with the Braves. Rodriguez said he and his representatives stayed in touch with the Pirates throughout the process.</p><p>&#8220;They were definitely there,&#8221; Rodriguez said. &#8220;I felt like on my end I did everything I could to basically give Neal every opportunity to basically match whatever was out there. I don&#8217;t know what the team&#8217;s budget was like, what the cap was or what they wanted to stay around. I don&#8217;t know all that. I felt like me and my agent did what I told Neal I would do.</p><p>&#8220;Going into the offseason, me and my wife talked about it, yeah, we definitely would love to go back to Pittsburgh. That&#8217;s not something I had experienced previously in parts of eight or nine seasons in the big leagues. It was pretty amazing.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Former Pittsburgh Pirate Sean Rodriguez, who&#8217;s now with the Atlanta Braves, is likely to miss the entire season after injuring his shoulder in a car crash this off-season. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_Sean-Rodriguez-CMYK.jpg</photo0><caption0>Former Pittsburgh Pirate Sean Rodriguez, who&#8217;s now with the Atlanta Braves, is likely to miss the entire season after injuring his shoulder in a car crash this off-season. </caption0><photoCredit0>Billy Hurst | AP file photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Stephen J. Nesbitt</p><p>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</p></bylineMeta></div>

Sean Rodriguez reflects on time with the Pittsburgh Pirates