Braves Spring Training Update: Hurston Waldrep, Chris Sale, Ronald Acuña Jr.

Braves fans everywhere are keeping their fingers crossed for good news on Ronald Acuña Jr.'s scheduled MRI in Los Angeles today. Atlanta Braves President of Baseball Operations, Alex Anthopoulos, has came out and provided a vote of confidence in Acuña's chances to be ready for Opening Day.

Even so, all of Braves country will feel much better if and when they get back good news from the upcoming MRI on Acuña's surgically repaired knee. Until then, it's probably good practice to visit some of the good news and notes from Atlanta's Spring Training games this week.

Top prospect impresses in Spring debut

Often times in Spring Training a rebuilding team can have most of their attention on one of their top prospects. However, despite being far beyond the rebuilding years, the Atlanta Braves have a young pitcher starting to garner some national buzz.

2023 first round pick, Hurston Waldrep made his Spring Training debut on Saturday and man did he impress. He nearly touched 99 mph on his fastball, and threw a few absolutely disgusting splitters. In his two innings of work he threw 34 pitches, got two strikeouts, and surrendered a couple of free passes.

Chris Sale continues to rack up the strikeouts

The veteran LHP made his second start in a Braves uniform on Sunday afternoon, this time going nearly three innings against the Phillies. In just 5.2 IP in spring thus far, Sale has already compiled nine strikeouts compared to just three hits allowed.

He has looked like one of the sneaky best moves of the offseason, and his fastball velocity looks as impressive as it did a few years ago when he was still contending for AL Cy Young awards. However, there is a long way to go before Opening Day, and the Braves want to get Sale there healthy more than anything. With that said, Braves fans won't mind watching a few more of Sale's unhittable sliders to get us through the rest of March.

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