Atlanta Braves Add to Bullpen & Shuffle Minor League Deck
By Fred Owens
This morning the Atlanta Braves adjusted the bullpen due to injury, added a potential bullpen arm and shuffled the minor league rosters. Here’s the rundown.
Atlanta Braves GM John Coppolella may not be the busiest in baseball – I see you Jerry DiPoto – but the last couple of days have seen a lot of movement at multiple levels.
The Atlanta Braves Bullpen Shuffle
This morning the Atlanta Braves put left hander Eric O’Flaherty on the 10-day DL with a lower back strain. According to Mark Bowman, “back locked up as he was warming up for a possible appearance during Friday night’s win over the Nationals.”
Back issues troubled EOF throughout his career and have never been a long-term issue. He missed five days in 2009, five more in 2011, a couple of days in 2014 and two days at the end of 2015.
To fill his bullpen spot the Braves recalled right hander Luke Jackson from Gwinnett. Jackson came up briefly in April and made three appearances before returning to the G-Braves,
After returning to Gwinnett he made three relief appearances and three starts; his relief appearances were more impressive than his starts. In 4 1/3 innings the hard throwing righty gave up one run on three hits struck out five and walked one.