Atlanta Braves: 5 storylines to watch in final week of regular season

Sorting out the starting rotation

Who would have thought we’d be more concerned about the starting rotation than the bullpen heading into the postseason?

While there are still concerns about the bottom half of the bullpen, the main guys acquired at the trade deadline are pretty solid and I feel good about them.

But I am a little worried about the starting rotation.

Dallas Keuchel and Mike Soroka are definitely your game one and two starters, and I feel pretty good about them. Although it’s a bit concerning that neither lasted longer than five innings in their last starts, but at least with Soroka, I think they are just being cautious with workloads.

After those two I really just think Brian Snitker and the Atlanta Braves are going to give a start to whoever has the best matcup — most likely against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Max Fried has given up 16 earned runs in his last six starts, and with the Cardinals not having a ton of lefties, I almost feel like he won’t get a start in the NLDS.

Julio Teheran has been uninspiring in his last two starts, but he has good history against the Cardinals.

Maybe the most interesting thing to keep an eye on is Mike Foltynewicz‘ last two starts.

The Atlanta Braves have won his last 11 starts, and he’s given up just 14 earned runs in eight starts (2.76 ERA) since coming back from Triple-A.

He’ll have a chance to help the Atlanta Braves clinch the NL East on Friday night, and then he’ll likely get one more start before the postseason.

With the Cardinals right-handed heavy lineup, if Folty looks strong in both of those outings and pitches like he has in the last three starts, I could see him starting game three.

I’m sure we’ll be writing much more about this down the stretch, but how the starting rotation fills up after the top two will be very important to watch.