ATLANTA — The Atlanta Braves have gotten off to a hot start in June. The NL East leaders are 13-3 and riding a six-game winning streak heading into their showdown with the Philadelphia Phillies in Citizens Bank Park, which begins Tuesday night.
This season, a lot of attention has been paid to the Braves' starting rotation which is not what the front office envisioned. Both Max Fried and Kyle Wright, the two top guys when the season started, are out with injuries, and out of those two, Fried is closer to coming back.
Young guys like Bryce Elder and Spencer Strider have stepped up in Fried and Wright’s absence, and on Tuesday, Strider is making the start against Phillies starter Ranger Suárez.
On the latest episode of Locked On Braves, host Jake Mastroianni talked about the Braves’ rotation, put it in the order he’d want it to be in the playoffs, and wondered if it can hold up for the rest of the season as is.
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“If I were making a postseason roster right now of who they currently have, I’d still go Strider in Game One.” Mastroianni said. “I know he’s given up a lot of runs in his last couple of outings, but I would still go Strider. Then I’d go with Charlie Morton because (his) dominant type of pitching typically plays off in the postseason, and he’s veteran, but I think you can flip a coin there between Morton and Elder.”
That’s not a bad top three heading into a short playoff series—assuming Atlanta stays in the lead in the division and gets to host the first two games of the five-game Division Series.
As Mastroianni said, Strider has been roughed up a bit in his past couple of outings, but overall, he’s 7-2 in 14 games with a 4.12 ERA. Morton has also started 14 games so far in 2023, and he’s 6-6 with a 3.71 ERA, while Elder is leading the starters with a 2.60 ERA in, you guessed it, 14 starts.
When finishing the talk of the rotation, Mastroianni is putting AJ Smith-Shawver ahead of Jared Shuster. Smith-Shawver has made two starts, he’s only 20 years old, but in those two starts, he’s 1-0 with a 2.03 ERA. Shuster is 4-2 in eight starts with a 4.57 ERA. The reason for ranking Shawver-Smith ahead of Shuster is Mastroianni believes there’s more upside with Shawver-Smith. He added about Shuster, “I don’t see much upside past him being a fifth starter.”
The Braves also have guys like Michael Soroka and Dylan Dodd down in the minors, so if anything happens to the aforementioned five, they can also fill in in a pinch.
So the starting rotation has been good without Kyle Wright and Max Fried, but can they sustain this for the rest of the season, or will the Braves have to look for reinforcements as the season goes on?
Mastroianni thinks the luck may run out for some of the starters at some point, but the Braves may have a good enough backup plan to withstand it.
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