Braves' Wood 'feeling normal' months after forearm soreness

Atlanta Braves left-hander Alex Wood admitted Tuesday that it probably made sense for the club to skip his final start of the 2014 season after the 24-year-old experienced soreness in his forearm.

"It's never easy to tell me that I'm not going to pitch," Wood told MLB.com's Mark Bowman. "But I think I've done enough stupid things in my life, especially when I was in high school and even in college. Now there's a bigger picture. At that point, making my last start just to make my last start wouldn't have made sense."

Wood, who underwent Tommy John surgery prior to his freshman campaign at the University of Georgia, added that he hasn't experienced any pain in his forearm since he resumed throwing a month ago.

"I think once you have played baseball long enough, you kind of know if something is serious or not," Wood said. "I took two or three weeks off before I started lifting [weights] and all of that stuff. Once I got back into it, I waited another two weeks before I did a ton of upper body [workouts]. After about three weeks or a month, I was feeling normal."

Wood, a second-round pick in the 2012 draft, is expected to open the season in Atlanta's rotation after crafting a 2.59 ERA with a 3.87 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 24 starts in 2014.