Braves News: Mike Soroka Update and Thoughts on Ian Anderson

We got a little bit of an update on Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Mike Soroka and how he’s recovering from surgery after tearing his Achilles.

For the first time since that brutal night when Mike Soroka had to be helped off the field knowing his 2020 season had come to an end, we heard from the ace of the Atlanta Braves.

In a Zoom call with Braves reporters on Wednesday, Mike talked about how his recovery is going and even gave his thoughts on Ian Anderson who will make his debut against the New York Yankees later Wednesday afternoon.

First of all, it’s just great to see and hear from Mike again. I know we’re biased as Braves fans, but he’s a very easy guy to root for you and we wish him nothing but the best in his recovery.

It sounds like he’ll be in a cast for about another week and then will go into a boot.

Mike appears to be shooting for that 4-5 month time frame as far as getting back on the mound. That’s probably a young kid thinking optimistically.

I think the best-case scenario is that Mike is back before the end of spring training next year and possibly gets a start or two at the end of spring training.

That could mean he possibly just misses the first month of the season, and maybe not even the entire first month.

But again, that’s thinking very optimistically.

As Mike says again-and-again in the interview, everyone responds differently to this type of injury.

But him being young and determined like he is, I know he’s going to do everything he can to get back on the mound as soon as possible.

You just hope the Braves don’t let him push it too much as he’s extremely valuable to the future of this franchise, and you’d just hate to see him have another setback.

I loved what he had to say about Anderson. Especially the last part where he says he won’t be timid.

Certainly, we’re all hoping for someone that has the maturity that Soroka showed right away, but that’s a lofty expectation.

Really, we just need one of these prospects to come up and trust their stuff. And that’s what I think Soroka is saying here — Anderson won’t be intimidated and will go after hitters with the stuff that got him here.

It was great to hear from Soroka and hopefully the next time we hear from him we’ll have a better idea of when he could return next year.