Elder's quest to rebound in '26 gets off to promising start

ATLANTA -- Bryce Elder picked up where he left off last year and gave the Braves further reason to be happy with how their injury-depleted rotation has performed thus far.

Elder has dealt with frustrating stretches of inconsistency since earning an All-Star selection in 2023. But he ended last season in encouraging fashion and began this season by guiding the Braves to a 4-0 win over the A’s on Monday night at Truist Park.

“Hell of a job by Bryce,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “I’m really proud of him.”

Matt Olson’s opposite-field bloop double and a Mauricio Dubón line-drive single fueled a three-run first inning that allowed Elder to construct most of his 83-pitch effort with a lead. The Braves’ hurler allowed five hits, tallied five strikeouts and issued just one walk over six innings.

“I faced him before and it was not easy,” Dubón said after aiding Elder with three hits. “Having him on my side is pretty good now.”

Elder now stands as the only MLB pitcher who has allowed three runs or less over at least six innings seven times going back to Aug. 24. The only other pitchers to do this six times during this stretch are the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara, the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Red Sox's Garrett Crochet, and the Yankees’ duo of Max Fried and Carlos Rodón.

That’s pretty good company for anybody. For Elder, it’s validation that he can indeed get back to where he was when he came up from Triple-A Gwinnett a week into the season three years ago and earned a spot on the National League’s pitching staff.

Is he a better pitcher than he was during the first half of the 2023 season?

“I think I’m more complete,” Elder said. “I think in ’23, I went on a run and was just making good pitches over and over again. But from a stuff standpoint and the crispness and stuff, yeah, I absolutely do.”

Elder has had a chance to learn from the adversity he has regularly encountered over the past couple years. He posted a 5.99 ERA over 44 starts from July 18, 2023-Aug. 19, 2025, and lost the trust of many Braves fans, some of whom questioned whether he should be part of this year’s plans.

Even if the Braves hadn’t lost four starting pitchers to injuries during Spring Training, there was a good chance Elder would have started this season with Atlanta. His final five weeks of last season earned him this opportunity he plans to seize with the assistance of a changeup he’ll use more frequently and a cutter, which gives him a pitch that comes in to lefties on a different plane than his slider. He was throwing his four-seamer harder than ever at the end of last year, but he threw the pitch just four times on Monday.

Elder’s bread-and-butter pitches remain his sinker and slider. But veteran catcher Jonah Heim, who has been behind the plate for two shutout wins this season, is already seeing how the changeup complements the other pitches.

“When he's got so much run with his sinker, you’ve got to play that back-and-forth game with both pitches,” Heim said. “When you’ve got all that movement and you can locate north, south, east and west, it makes it really easy on me to call a game.”

The Braves’ rotation depth remains a concern. Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep will both be sidelined for at least a couple more months, while Spencer Strider may need another week or two to recover from a left oblique strain.

But starting pitchers Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Grant Holmes and Elder have quieted concerns while limiting opponents to just four runs over 23 innings thus far. It’s just four games. But one year after opening the season with seven straight losses, the Braves (3-1) are thrilled to be tasting early success.

“The talent is obviously there,” Weiss said. “These guys have done it before. I think the biggest question is just the health. You're seeing these guys. They're healthy now, and they're really good.”