Takeaways from a bad night for the Atlanta Braves
By James Kunkle
The Atlanta Braves got smashed by the Washington Nationals 13-4 Thursday night. Not a whole lot went right and let’s waste no time getting into it.
The Atlanta Braves have hit a little bump in the road after starting off the second half red hot.
Pitching has been an issue these last few days and we will get into that a bit more here in a second.
The Atlanta Braves, while still holding a good size lead in the NL East, have the hottest team in baseball trying to catch them.
With that said, let’s get into the three takeaway’s from Thursday’s game.
3. Why is Kyle Wright pitching this game?
I didn’t understand this move from the time it was announced Thursday afternoon. Why in the world did the Braves call up Kyle Wright to start this game?
Julio Teheran was ready to go and it seems the Atlanta Braves just pushed everyone back just to do it.
Add on top of that, it seems Kevin Gausman is returning Sunday if early reports are accurate. And to take it a step further, we have TWO off days next week. Point being, the starting staff already had a chance to get a little rest in the coming days.
The Braves are in the middle of a playoff chase — as we all know — and it is indeed the Nationals who are chasing us.
I don’t think it’s the time to be putting someone out on the mound who has only made a couple starts at the MLB level in a start in a crucial series.
It also doesn’t help that the Nationals pushed Stephen Strasburg back a day to start this game against the Braves. Hopefully we get a little luck and miss Max Scherzer.
To quickly recap though, Kyle Wright had a so-so first inning allowing a couple of base runners, but got through the second cleanly. It all unraveled in the third inning, however.
It became a problem to throw strikes and the Nationals teed off on the strikes he did throw scoring 8 runs and obviously, Wright didn’t finish the third inning.
So yes, I didn’t agree with the decision to start Wright here and I would have gone with Teheran. I would have still trusted Mike Foltynewicz more than Kyle Wright in this spot.
I still have faith in Wright’s long term value, I just think this wasn’t the spot to try anything. What is done is done though and hopefully this isn’t the sign for a long series.