Atlanta Braves: Julio Teheran puts postseason spot in question with bad outing
By James Kunkle
The Atlanta Braves finished off the series against the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday with a 9-5 defeat.
Atlanta Braves pitching couldn’t keep the Phillies in the ballpark as Philadelphia hit 4 home runs in the game. Let’s get to some more takeaways from the game.
3. Julio Teheran can’t pitch like this if he wants a starting spot in October
Safe to say Thursday was just not Julio Teheran’s night at the ballpark. Julio went 4 innings but gave up 5 hits and 3 walks and allowed 5 earned runs in the process. The earned runs raised his season ERA to 3.50.
Obviously a 3.50 ERA is nothing to scoff at, but here is the problem for Julio — every other starting pitcher right now is pitching great.
There are only so many seats at the table, and just when I was ready to hand a spot to Julio to pitch in a big series, he comes out and throws a clunker like he did Thursday night.
I don’t want to get worked up too much over one bad start, because Julio has still been good since the summer began. However, again the reality is right now, one or two bad starts can derail his chances at a starting spot in the NLDS.
The three home runs Julio allowed is only one less than the four he had allowed combined since the All-Star break.
So hopefully Julio can rebound and pitch nicely in his next start, which is scheduled to be the same Philadelphia Phillies team in Atlanta next week. That could go a long way in determining his role for the upcoming playoffs.
It would be extremely nice for all these pitchers to close the season out in style and give the Atlanta Braves coaching staff and front office some extremely tough decisions in the upcoming weeks.
One last note about Julio — he has got to control the walks. After Thursday’s three, he now has issued 17 free passes in his last six starts.