BS Report: The Rotation Problems Continue
Braves with a rough loss on Tuesday night, 8 to 3 to San Diego as the Padres hit several home runs, something the Braves have done fairly regularly in the first four games since the All-Star break. But they were not able to do that last night to the Padres, even the series at one apiece. They will have game three of the series tonight at Truist Park.
Martin Perez, back off of the injured list, will be on the mound for Atlanta in the starts, and he’s done pretty well as a bottom the rotation starting pitcher for this team. So we’ll see how he does tonight as they continue to struggle with starting pitching the five games so far, they have had only 25 innings from their starting pitchers, and seven of those came from Chris Sale on the first game on Friday night.
That continues to be the bugaboo for this team, and you can only imagine in the next two weeks before the August 3rd trade deadline. That is going to be the focus of Alex, and that was the president of baseball operations for this team. To get more starting pitching. Last night, they had to go to J.R. Ritchie to come out of the bullpen.
He pitched three plus innings. And then this morning they sent me back to Triple-A to activate Martin Perez off of the injured list. I do not agree with how they have ‘yoyo’. These young pitchers, including Owen Murphy and also now J.R. Ritchie back in two from Triple-A to the big leagues. If these kids are ready, they need to be able to stick and stay in the rotation and do well.
If not, then lay them down in Triple-A until they are ready. But back and forth, it just does not work. It didn’t work with Kyle Ryan several years ago when they almost ruined him, and probably did because he’s now been injured and hasn’t been able to get healthy ever since. He had a great year for the Braves in 2022, but that’s been it.
He’s not been the same ever since, and I don’t know if the ‘yoyo’ back and forth hurt him per se, but it didn’t help because these pitchers are in a routine every couple of days to start a game, and all of a sudden they’re going to be yanked up to Atlanta to pitch in the bullpen because the general manager hasn’t done his job to get the bullpen right in the first place.
And they are down. One major bullpen arm with Roberts. Way is still on the injured list. Alex and Tom was talked out the other day about how it might be a couple of more days, really, before Robert Suarez is able to get back into the bullpen, so we’ll see about that. But the Braves continue to have some starting pitching issues.
They need a good start from Perez tonight, who again has been pretty decent for this team as a behind the rotation starter. But they are not going very deep in games at all. And even your rotation, even after five games after the All-Star break, is averaging five innings per start and is going to wear that bullpen out pretty quickly.
So they got to be careful about that, and they have to have those bats get going again tonight. For game three of the series at Truist Park against the Padres.
