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.

As I saw Jesse Chavez preparing to enter the first game of Wednesday afternoon’s doubleheader sweep of the Tigers, I playfully told some friends, “Use him now, so that he can get a chance to rest before closing the second game.”

Chavez has been Mr. Everything and the Braves’ most consistent reliever throughout this season. He’s shown he can be effective as an opener, a long reliever and a high-leverage option. In the process, he has put a lot of mileage on his 39-year-old arm through this season’s first 10 weeks. 

So, the Braves will certainly miss Chavez as he spends the next two weeks on the injured list, courtesy of the Miguel Cabrera comebacker that bruised his left shin on Wednesday. But looking at the big picture, Chavez missing a couple weeks in June might prove to be quite beneficial in September and October.

Chavez was on pace to make 74 appearances this year. That’s certainly not the kind of workload expected from somebody who will turn 40 in August. Chavez did make a career-high 73 appearances way back in 2009, before he began the first of four different tenures with the Braves.

But I think it’s safe to say there was never any plan for Chavez to come out of the bullpen 70-plus times this year. Additionally, there wasn’t any expectation for him to post a 1.55 ERA and produce a career-best 30.8 percent strikeout rate.

So, yeah, the Braves are going to miss having one of their top relievers over the next couple weeks. But they’d rather have him unavailable now, than burned out and possibly ineffective down the stretch.