What Atlanta Braves Pitcher Impacted the Team Most During the Month of May?
By Steven Teal
The Atlanta Braves pitching staff featured many impressive outings during the month of May. However, none of them shined brighter than Canadian native, Mike Soroka.
After a shaky start to the 2019 season, the Atlanta Braves pitching staff is still working through the process of establishing confidence and clarity.
At the beginning of the season, it was unsure what the starting staff would look like due to injuries to Mike Foltynewicz, Kevin Gausman, and Mike Soroka.
Once those three were able to come back, the rotation found some stability (though in recent days, even that’s up for debate). Clearly, that’s an important thing for any team.
Teams don’t want to go into each game and be unsure of who will be on the mound. The Atlanta Braves turned to Bryse Wilson and Kyle Wright to lead the rotation. Unfortunately, that didn’t translate into very much success.
When you couple that with the struggles that Julio Teheran, Sean Newcomb, and the entire bullpen, it isn’t a recipe for success.
All of this led to the Atlanta Braves pitching staff combining for an ERA of 4.68 between the March and April. That is not what you want to see from a team hoping to defend their division title.
April Showers Bring May Flowers
Towards the end of April, the Braves pitching staff started to turn things around. A few bullpen moves and a steady rotation seemed to give them more confidence.
Excluding Friday night’s game in Atlanta, in the month of May, the Braves pitching staff lowered their ERA to 3.87 in 246.2 innings pitched… and that does count the meltdown that came from Kevin Gausman in the last Nationals’ game.
Much of that success is from guys like Max Fried, Luke Jackson, and Sean Newcomb stepping it up.
However, there was one starting pitcher who stood far above the rest.