This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. This edition was written by Zach Sweet. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO -- The Braves have spent most of this season making the difficult look routine.
Then came two nights on the South Side.
Atlanta dropped the first two games of its series against the White Sox in wildly different ways -- first with a 10th-inning gut punch, then with a quiet offensive night in Wednesday’s 2-1 loss. The Braves will try to avoid a sweep Thursday before heading to New York for a weekend series against the Mets.
Still, amid a frustrating stretch that included Ronald Acuña Jr. landing back on the injured list and the offense leaving 10 men on base Wednesday, one part of the roster continued to look like October material.
The bullpen kept giving the Braves a chance.
That has become a familiar theme. When Chris Sale exited Wednesday after 5 2/3 innings, Atlanta trailed by two runs and needed its relief corps to keep the game close. Didier Fuentes entered and cleaned up the sixth. Dylan Lee handled another tight spot. James Karinchak, making his first Major League appearance since 2023, worked around a double in the eighth and put up a zero in his Braves debut.
The Braves never found the big hit, but the bullpen did its part.
“They continue to do a great job,” Sale said. “D.D. [Fuentes] coming in after me and cleaning up that mess, Dylan Lee has been nails for years now. Karinchak coming up, he probably had a long night or a long morning today. For those guys to go out there and keep it where it’s at, they gave us a chance, and that’s exactly what you want.”
That sentence has essentially become the bullpen’s job description.
Keep it where it’s at.
The Braves have leaned on different versions of that formula all year. Raisel Iglesias remains the closer. Robert Suarez has become one of manager Walt Weiss’ most trusted late-inning weapons. Lee continues to be the steady left-handed presence he has been for years. Fuentes has given Atlanta valuable flexibility, whether that means cleaning up traffic, covering length or handling leverage.
And lately, the supporting cast has mattered just as much.
Dylan Dodd has already delivered important outs on this trip. Karinchak now enters the mix after being selected to the Major League roster Wednesday. JR Ritchie was also recalled, giving the Braves another arm who can help cover innings as the club navigates a stretch that has required some bullpen creativity.
Weiss has talked often about the importance of defining roles in a bullpen. But those roles only exist when pitchers earn them.
The Braves’ relievers have.
“It was good to see Karinchak,” Weiss said. “Got a look at him down one, pretty high leverage right there late in the game … and put up a zero. So that was good to see. But our bullpen has been good all year.”
Karinchak’s return added one of the better moments of an otherwise frustrating night. He was once one of the more electric relievers in the sport before injuries and inconsistency pushed him out of the Majors. The Braves signed him to a Minor League deal, waited and finally gave him another shot.
“It’s great, man,” Weiss said. “I love those stories, the guys that persevere and have to fight through adversity.”
The Braves would rather not need so many of those stories right now. Acuña is out with a Grade 1 left hamstring strain. Tyler Kinley was placed on the injured list with right elbow inflammation. The offense has scored six runs through the first two games of this series, and four of those came in the first three innings Tuesday.
But this is where a deep bullpen matters. It gives a team room to breathe when the lineup stalls, when the roster shifts and when the game gets messy.
The Braves still have one more game in Chicago. Then comes a division matchup in Queens.
If they are going to steady themselves quickly, the offense will need to wake up. But if the past few nights have shown anything, it’s that Atlanta’s bullpen is capable of keeping the door open long enough for that to happen.