Major League Baseball

Chipper likely to undergo MRI exam

Published Sep. 26, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Ken Rosenthal

Chipper Jones slumped in his chair.

“I feel like I’m 50,” he said late Monday night.

Jones, 39, was referring to the lower half of his body — and specifically, his troublesome right knee.

Jones, the Braves’ third baseman, told FOXSports.com that he likely will undergo an MRI exam on the knee Tuesday, but fully intends to play in the team’s final two games of the season.

“It’s the first night I felt it burning,” said Jones, who missed 16 days in July after undergoing surgery for torn cartilage in his knee. “The last time I had this burning, it was both times I blew out my knee.”

That would be Jones’ left knee, the one that twice required major surgery for a torn ACL, first in 1994, then in 2010.

His current problem is with the other knee.

“They took an X-ray — I don’t have any loose bodies,” Jones said. “But I have fluid in my knee for some reason. And I don’t know why. The pain is in the same spot as it was pre-surgery (in July).”

Jones hit a home run and double Monday night in the Braves’ 4-2 loss to the Phillies, but looked uncomfortable running and moving around in the field. After the game, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said that Jones, “tweaked his knee a little bit.”

The Braves lead the Cardinals by one game in the National League wild-card race with two to play.

How would Jones react if doctors told him not to play?

“I’m going to be upset,” he said. “But I’ll probably do it anyway, until I just can’t do it anymore.

“I probably should have come out tonight (Monday). But I can’t not play. I’ve been preaching to the boys: ‘I don’t want to hear you’re tired. I don’t want to hear how you’re hurting. All men on deck.’

“How is it going to look if I take myself out of games?”

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