Starting Rotation
Arms Race
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
For most of 2019 the Atlanta Braves’ bullpen has shouldered most of the criticism for the team.
Braves Country has clamored for relief help for months, decrying that Craig Kimbrel signed elsewhere when the Braves really needed him.
Despite the fact that the Braves have had one of the top bullpens in the National League since June 1st, the idea that the relief corps is struggling has continued, but that notion is starting to shift.
Max Fried hit the 10-day IL with an injury last week and it started off a chain reaction that has exposed the Braves’ actual need: depth of starting pitching.
With prospects coming out of their ears, this might sound crazy, but guys the Braves were counting on to be reliable this season – namely Mike Foltynewicz, Kevin Gausman, and to a lesser extent Sean Newcomb – have been anything but.
Even with the injuries and poor showings by those three, the Braves have roared to the top of the NL East behind a stellar season from Mike Soroka, consistently good outings by Max Fried, a return to form by Julio Teheran, and the recent addition of Dallas Keuchel.
But after Fried went down, the Braves starting plugging holes with pieces that haven’t been up to snuff.
Bryce Wilson and Kyle Wright are talented pitchers and may very well still be huge parts of Atlanta’s future, but they haven’t been able to perform at the level that a first-place team needs them to. Certainly not Wright, who couldn’t make it out of the 3rd inning in his start against the Washington Nationals on Thursday.
And that’s the biggest sign that the Braves don’t have the depth they need in the rotation: Going into a four-game series against the team directly under them in the standings (and a scorching hot team to boot), the Braves pitched an unproven rookie in the first game and turned to Gausman and his 6.21 ERA to prevent a second straight series loss in game four (that previous series loss, to the Brewers, came ominously after Fried hit the IL and was Atlanta’s first series loss since the first week in June).
The Braves have just about a week and a half before the trade deadline (remember: starting this year, July 31st is the ONLY trade deadline). Gausman and Folty might turn things around, but Alex Anthopoulos can’t bet the whole season on that.
Atlanta needs to start wheeling and dealing for rotation help or – even if they manage to hold on to their NL East lead – they’ll get eaten alive in the playoffs, again, probably by the Dodgers, again.
Marcus Stroman, Zack Greinke, Trevor Bauer, Zach Wheeler, Madison Bumgarner; these are all potentially available pitchers that could make a difference in Atlanta’s fortunes.
They don’t need to go out and try to pick up the most dominant ace in the history of the game, but they need reliability on the mound every turn through.
It’s always stress-inducing to give up prospects. No one wants to overpay, but the price for the kind of pitcher the Braves need to succeed in the postseason is going to be steep.
That’s okay. The time of considering the future is in the past. The Braves have a chance to win in the here and now, but only if they act.
The comfortable lead the Braves carved out for themselves is getting less comfortable, especially over the weekend during their series against Washington.
Atlanta needs to arm itself (pun very much intended) in order to keep some distance between themselves and the Nationals (and Phillies, who are still playing above .500 with a dangerous lineup).
Young Guns
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Going into Spring Training, the Atlanta Braves felt like they had two strong anchors in their starting rotation in Mike Foltynewicz and Kevin Gausman.
Both guys had a few years in the bigs under their belts and both had successful campaigns in 2018. Gausman’s success coming after he was traded to Dixie from the Baltimore Orioles, in particular.
It was the rest of the rotation that was covered in question marks. The loss of Anibal Sanchez to Sean Newcomb’s second half crash to the ever-changing consistency of Julio Teheran, the starting corps was less of a strength and more of a potential strength.
The talent was there. The Braves had built up a mountain of wealth in the arms department but there was no track record because a few flashes of brilliance from most of the prospects.
So, there was reasonable concern when both Folty and Gausman couldn’t make it to the finish line of Spring Training healthy. These were the guys Atlanta needed to lean on while the prospects and younger arms of the rotation were put to the test.
Flash forward to the June 1st, the season is two-thirds of the way done, and the Braves have two strong anchors in their rotation: but the twist is that the anchors are two of those same prospects the Braves weren’t sure they could count on in March.
Mike Soroka and Max Fried have been the stalwart performers of Atlanta’s starting rotation in 2019, leading the team in earned run average and wins, respectively, and each of them rank second in the category they aren’t leading in.
In fact, the question marks surround Folty and Gausman, who both returned from the Injured List and have been inconsistent at best (Gausman, for the most part) or just bad at worst (Folty, for the most part). They haven’t been able to secure wins for their team, going 3-8 collectively, and neither can boast an ERA under 5.50.
If there’s good news among the bad, it’s that both are talented enough to break out of these funks. In fact, both have had recent games that looked like a turnaround point only to have poor outings the following turn.
Soroka and Fried, on the other hand, have been consistently great. Fried has kept Atlanta in pretty much every game he’s started, as his 7 wins show. Finally, getting a chance to stick in the rotation (he made a total of 9 starts out of 23 appearances over the past two seasons), Fried is showing why the Braves coveted him so much when they traded Justin Upton to San Diego for him in December of 2014.
Soroka has been a revelation; picking up from where he left off last season before he got hurt and proving that he’s got the moxie to be a top starter even at the age of 21.
Soroka has been so good since joining the rotation that when he went eight innings in San Francisco against the Giants last month and only gave up one run, his ERA actually went up.
The kicker is that the last piece of the rotation puzzle, Julio Teheran, has actually been pretty good this year as well. He may have finally settled into the middle-of-the-rotation guy he was probably always destined to be anyway.
What this all amounts to is this: if (when?) Folty and Gausman figure it out, the Braves rotation will be among the most formidable quintet in the game today. And that’s thanks in large part to the teams two studs: Mike Soroka and Max Fried.
No Aces For Braves
By: TJ Hartnett
TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services
Before winning the first two of three against the Marlins in Miami over the weekend, the Braves were (not) enjoying a miserable six game losing streak. It was their second such victory-less run of the year, to go along with a five-gamer already in the books all before the second month of the season has seen its halfway point.
Unfortunately, the biggest culprit behind this crime of losing has been the pitching staff; a notable bruise given that three veterans were brought on board before the season began to avoid these kinds of slumps.
