It’s getting tough to find any fresh arms out there. How Brian Snitker gets through this game may depend specifically on Julio Teheran.
At this point, you may have to throw out any thoughts about “who’s doing well?” and simply ask “who is rested enough to go?” The Atlanta Braves have had to rely on their bullpen for far too many innings over the past week and that fact is clearly impacting some of these weekend games against the Diamondbacks.
In total, the bullpen has thrown 25.1 innings and 463 pitches over these past 7 days. But it’s also the warmups and general appearances that are also involved that introduce the fatigue.
Among these 10 pitchers, there have been 30 total game appearances. While this is obviously an average of 3 apiece, some have been seen fewer times – notably Kyle Wright and Bryse Wilson.
Jesse Biddle was also a 2-time thrower this week and so was A.J. Minter.
Here’s the complete run-down of appearances and pitches thrown, going in reverse chronological order from Sept. 7th back to Sept. 1st:
- Sam Freeman
- FRI. 21 pitches, 1.1 innings
- THR. 11 pitches, 2 batters faced
- MON. 7 pitches, 0.2 innings
- SAT. 5 pitches, 0.2 innings
- Kyle Wright
- FRI. 40 pitches, 1.0 innings (plus 3 batters)
- TUE. 31 pitches, 2.0 innings
- Luke Jackson
- FRI. 7 pitches, 1.0 innings
- THR. 8 pitches, 0.1 innings
- TUE. 25 pitches, 1.0 innings
- MON. 6 pitches, 0.2 innings
- Shane Carle
- THR. 18 pitches, 1.0 innings
- TUE. 12 pitches, 0.2 innings
- MON. 9 pitches, 1.0 innings
- SAT. 9 pitches, 0.2 innings
- Dan Winkler
- THR. 16 pitches, 1.0 innings
- WED. 10 pitches, 0.0 innings (4 batters faced)
- SUN. 8 pitches, 0.2 innings
- Jonny Venters
- THR. 16 pitches, 0.2 innings
- WED. 12 pitches, 0.1 innings
- SUN. 9 pitches, 0.1 innings
- SAT. 7 pitches, 0.2 innings
- Jesse Biddle
- THR. 24 pitches, 1.0 innings
- WED. 11 pitches, 1.0 innings
- Brad Brach
- THR. 14 pitches, 1.0 innings
- WED. 9 pitches, 0.1 innings
- TUE. 16 pitches, 1.0 innings
- SUN. 6 pitches, 1.0 innings
- A.J. Minter
- WED. 36 pitches, 1.1 innings
- SAT. 12 pitches, 1.0 innings
- Bryse Wilson
- MON. 26 pitches, 1.0 innings
- Freeman: OUT after throwing 32 pitches between Thursday and Friday.
- Wright: OUT after throwing 40 pitches last night
- Jackson: probably OUT after throwing Friday and having 4 appearances in the week.
- Biddle: 24 pitches Thursday
- Winkler: 16 pitches Thursday after 10 on Wednesday
- Carle: 18 pitches Thursday and 4 appearance in the week.
- Venters: 16 Thursday and 4 appearances in the week, including Wednesday
- Brach: 14 Thursday and 4 appearances in the week, including 3 straight
- Wilson
- Minter
- Fried?
- …with possible backup options of Biddle and Venters
The next most obvious question is “who might we see tonight?”
There is a bit of a wild card here, and that’s Max Fried. He last pitched as a starter on August 31st and should be available for a longer relief opportunity if necessary.
The Braves could be holding Fried back for a spot-starter chance, but he also needs to get some game work in, so we can’t rule out a relief appearance.
Beyond him, let’s do this by process of elimination:
That leaves…
The real hope, of course, is to get all other aspects of the game rolling so that we don’t need to think about this tonight. But while the likelihood of Julio Teheran going 9 innings is highly remote, the chances of getting a bunch of runs off of Clay Buchholz might be more so.
Buchholz is probably the best pitcher whose season you’ve heard nothing about this year: 2.05 ERA in 92 innings.
The last time Buchholz gave up more than 1 earned run was on August 10 — the Reds nicked him for just 2 that day.
So the Braves will have their work cut out for them in the desert. But keep thinking “big picture” – which is that a road split will be perfectly acceptable… and that’s still anybody’s guess on the outcome.