Atlanta Braves LHP Luiz Gohara progressing at Triple-A Gwinnett, works four innings

Braves LHP  Gohara working his way towards Atlanta’s rotation

The Atlanta Braves 21-year-old left-handed pitcher has had a rough past few months.  Luiz Gohara lost his father, in December, in an extremely traumatic way.  His father passed away in his arms on the way to the hospital.  Read Mark Bowman’s post about it here.

After all the emotions of losing a love one, Gohara had to enter Braves Spring Training.  Though after his impressive 2017 with the big league squad, Gohara still needed to prove he was deserving of a rotation spot.

In the first week of Spring Training workouts, a groin injury popped up.  After that injury healed, while doing pitcher deals, he sprained his ankle.

“It was a tough offseason,” Gohara said. “It was hard to leave [Brazil], but you’ve got to go to work.”

With the passing of his father — and with knowing his mother was diagnosed with some heart problems — Gohara most likely wasn’t able to do much off-season workouts.  Just guessing, but that takes a lot out of you mentality.

The big 6’3″ 265-pound left-handed pitcher was officially placed on the Braves 10-day DL on March 29th.  Now, he is working is way back to the Braves rotation.

He started his first rehab game on April 17th with the Mississippi Braves.  He went 3.1 innings, gave up five hits, one run, three walks and had four strikeout.

Following that start, he was promoted to the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers.  His first start with that squad was today, Sunday, and went four innings, gave up two hits, one run, no walks and had four strikeouts.

The lone run he gave up was a solo home run to Mike Ohlman in the bottom of the 2nd inning.

Gohara will make at least two more rehab starts before the Braves will consider calling him up.  His next start looks like it will be on Friday, April 27th and then May 2nd.

If all goes right and all he needs are those additional two starts, Gohara could be joining the Atlanta Braves rotation on May 8th against the Tampa Bay Rays.  That’s also the date it would be Matt Wisler’s third start.  We’ll see what happens there, but the Braves do have things lined up for Gohara to take that slot in the rotation.

Gwinnett blows lead in the 11th

While we’re here, we might as well go over the Gwinnett game on Sunday.  Gohara, as we mentioned, started the game and lasted four innings.  As he exited the game, Gwinnett was up 2-1.

As you’ll see from the final score, a lot of other things occurred.

Ronald Acúna Jr went 3-6 at the plate and has risen his batting average to .217 with the Gwinnett Stripers in 2018.  The 20-year-old top prospect is 8-24 (.333) in his past five games.  A few more solid games and we’ll see him in an Atlanta Braves uniform.

One mistake he did make on Sunday was on the base paths.  This was kinda ugly and no idea what he or Ezequiel Carrera were doing, but here it is…

Gwinnett was on the wrong side of a triple play

Next: Braves Jose Ramirez injury & unanswered questions

The Stripers scored two runs in the top of the 9th inning to put this game at 5-5 and go into extra innings.  The Stripers and Red Sox both scored a run in the 10th to make this go into the 11th inning.

In the top of the 11th, the Stripers scored three runs.  Okay!  We’ve got this one, right?  Nope.

With Jason Hursh pitching, the Red Sox scored four runs in the bottom of the 11th to take the victory.

Sounds like the Gwinnett Stripers need some help…how about a 37-year-old veteran…Jose Bautista?  He’ll join the club tomorrow for their doubleheader.