Why Braves' rotation injuries are no reason to panic

This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ATLANTA -- Before getting overly concerned about the Braves’ paper-thin rotation depth, let’s remember that Kyle Wright and Bryse Wilson both made a start during the three-game series against the Phillies to begin the 2019 season. Where was Max Fried? He made a pair of appearances out of the bullpen that weekend.

Fried ended up making 30 starts for an Atlanta club that ended up winning 97 games after being swept during that season-opening series in Philadelphia. As for Wright and Wilson, they each totaled just four starts for that club.

Or maybe it’s easier to remember that both Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd combined to start four of the first 10 games of the 2023 season. They’d go on to make only 15 starts between the two of them during that 104-win season. But Triple-A Gwinnett’s Opening Day starter Bryce Elder was one of the eight players who represented Atlanta at that year’s All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium.

There’s no sugarcoating the Braves’ current situation. Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep will be sidelined through at least late June as they recover from arthroscopic elbow surgeries. Joey Wentz will miss the season with an ACL tear and Spencer Strider will miss a start or two while recovering from an oblique strain that developed at the end of Spring Training.

But the good news is the Braves can feel good about the five guys that will begin the season in their rotation. Sorry, I should have saved that line for April 1.

Chris Sale will turn 37 on Tuesday, but he currently feels like the safest and most reliable option in the rotation. No. 2 starter Reynaldo López’s fastball averaged 89.2 mph during his final Spring Training start. That’s not what you want from a veteran who made just one start last year before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery.

As for Grant Holmes, he looked great during Spring Training. If he’s healthy, he could be one of the game’s biggest surprises this year. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get overly optimistic knowing an August MRI showed a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.

Holmes believes the tear may have been pre-existing. In other words, he believes last year’s discomfort was simply a flexor tendon strain. As for the UCL tear, it’s something he’s pitched with for ... years? Is that possible? Maybe. But it’s easy to understand why some think it’s just a matter of time before his elbow pops.

Elder will fill the rotation’s fourth spot with the hope that last year’s strong finish will help him finally find some consistency this year. As for the fifth spot? Braves manager Walt Weiss says he’s still deciding whether 20-year-old phenom Didier Fuentes (Atlanta’s No. 3 prospect via MLB Pipeline), José Suarez or Martín Pérez will fill that spot.

And did we mention that the Braves will play 13 straight days to open the season?

“Obviously Spring Training was hard,” Sale said. “We had some guys go down. That's never what you want. But I think sometimes opportunities come up because of that. I think the guys that are in those situations, now they're ready for the opportunities that they have.”

Though Sale didn’t mention Fuentes or J.R. Ritchie (No. 2 Braves prospect, No. 90 overall) by name, they are the most likely prospects who will have the chance to step up and help the Braves get through a rough situation.

In a perfect world, Fuentes would have more time to work on his secondary pitches and Ritchie would simply have more time to develop. But there’s nothing perfect about any 162-game season, except for the unpredictability.

Not knowing what to expect and overcoming the inevitable challenges adds to the fun of every baseball season.

As we sit here right now, it’s hard to know exactly how the Braves will get by until Schwellenbach and Waldrep are ready to re-strengthen the rotation’s depth. But it was also hard to predict how 2019 would go when Fried was in the bullpen, or how that great 2023 season would go when Shuster and Dodd started the season in the rotation.

How good was the 2023 offense? The Braves won 104 games with Michael Tonkin ranking fourth on the team in innings pitched.

The one thing we know is that we don’t know how these next six months will evolve. Sit back and enjoy the ride.