Atlanta Braves: Julio Teheran exits early, Ozzie Albies makes history in loss
By Steven Teal
2. Teheran Struggles To Get Through 3
Atlanta Braves starter Julio Teheran has had an up and down season in 2019. For the most part, he’s been really dependable for Atlanta.
However, the month of September has not been very kind to Julio. In 5 starts made this month, he has a win-loss record of 2-3 with a 6.56 ERA.
Across 23.1 innings of work, he’s allowed 17 earned runs with 20 hits, 11 walks, 21 strikeouts, and 6 homers allowed.
Julio is having a similar season to 2018 but has obviously regressed in a few areas.
Yesterday was extra rough for Teheran as he couldn’t really solve any of the Royals bats. Whit Merrifield worked a 13 pitch at-bat to start the game offensively and that was apparently an omen for the rest of the game.
He finished with a line of 2.1 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, 1 K. That’s definitely not the kind of start you want to end the season with, especially if your team is postseason bound.
Julio just seems tired and it’s starting to show a lot more than I’d hoped it would. His location was off last night and he couldn’t keep the ball off the middle of the plate.
I know he’s been dependable for us majority of the season but looking farther into it, he’s had a fairly mediocre season. That increased velocity he found early in the year faded quickly and unfortunately with the decreased velocity, he couldn’t afford to miss location anymore.
2019 was a similar season for Teheran as he pitched 174.2 innings, allowing 148 hits (26 more than last year), 81 runs(80 in 2018), 74 earned runs (3 less than 2018), 22 homers (4 less than 2018), 83 walks (1 less than 2018), and 162 strikeouts (same as 2018).
So, he’s stayed the same for the most part that he did in 2018. It doesn’t give you much hope that he’s going to return to his All-Star form anytime soon. That’s unfortunate as he is just 28 years old and should have a few years left in him.
I don’t know what Atlanta plans to do with him but I’m hoping they make the right decision for Julio as it relates to the postseason and his future in Atlanta.
What I do know is that this season surely didn’t end the way he hoped that it would.