Through seven innings on Tuesday, the Atlanta Braves were locked in a hard fought game with the Cardinals. They fell behind early, but home runs from Sean Murphy (again) and Matt Olson helped the Braves regain the lead only for St. Louis to tie the game. It was a genuinely good game...until the Braves' bullpen depth got truly tested.
Bullpen games are always a challenge especially when a team is lacking real talent beyond the top 3-4 guys in the pen and Atlanta know it. They got a gift from Spencer Schwellenbach on Monday when he went seven innings and allowed most of the bullpen to be well-rested for the game, but there was no denying that Spencer Strider's hamstring injury put the Braves in a tough spot.
That proved to be accurate as the bullpen absolutely imploded in the last two innings leading not only to a brutal 10-4 loss, but even more questions about the viability of Atlanta's relief corps over the course of the 2025 season.
Braves' bullpen depth fails test in brutal loss to Cardinals
Not all the news from Tuesday night when it came to the bullpen was bad. Scott Blewett made his Braves' debut and other than a bad pitch to Lars Nootbaar towards the end of his outing, he kept Atlanta in the game. Dylan Lee minimized the damage pretty well after getting brought in with the bases loaded and Aaron Bummer had an excellent two-inning appearance as well.
The rest of the bullpen, however, was pretty brutal. Rafael Montero came into the game and looked like the guy that the Astros were begging teams to take as he only managed to get one out and left the game with the bases loaded and the Braves' lead in dire jeopardy. Enyel De Los Santos couldn't find the strike zone and got beat up when he did. Nathan Wiles was surprisingly called up before the game and some thought he might get the lion's share of the innings, but instead he got mop up duty in the ninth and got torched in his MLB debut.
Notice anything about all of those names that struggled? None of them were on Braves fans' radars coming into the 2025 season. Wiles came over in a minor trade, Enyel De Los Santos was a non-roster invite to camp, and Montero was an Astro just a couple weeks ago. This isn't a Braves bullpen that was built with much in the way of intention, but instead was seemingly slapped together at the last minute.
Obviously the Braves losing Joe Jimenez was a surprise, but they never properly accounted for his loss last offseason at all. AJ Minter would have been a great multi-inning guy to have against St. Louis last night, but he is playing in New York now. For the first time in a long time, it feels like the Braves' front office neglected the bullpen and it really, really showed on Tuesday night.