Atlanta Braves add Julio Teheran to their NLDS Roster

The Atlanta Braves elected to add Julio Teheran onto the NLDS roster after an injury. Could he now be the game 4 starter?

The Atlanta Braves had to remove Chris Martin from the game before throwing a pitch in game 1 of the series with the Cardinals, and now they have been forced to remove him from the roster. The corresponding move was to add Julio Teheran to the roster.

The injury that Martin suffered has most likely ended his short-tenured Atlanta Braves career. He would be eligible to return if the Atlanta Braves were fortunate enough to make a trip to the World Series, but oblique injuries and pitchers aren’t usually good friends.

When news broke Wednesday about the Atlanta Braves leaving Julio off the roster, I was surprised, and then wondered aloud if he had in fact thrown his last pitch in an Atlanta uniform. However, I also realize how much this organization thinks of Julio and the simple reason he was left off the roster was he looked gassed his last few starts of the season.

Now here we sit two days later, and we could be looking at Julio Teheran to start the biggest game of the Braves season:  a possible game 4 against the Cardinals on Monday (First, we had to get to a game 4, but that was just guaranteed with Friday’s win).

These plans aren’t set in stone, but the way everything is aligning, this is the way it looks its going.

The only other possible choice would be Dallas Keuchel on short rest. I would only pitch Kuechel on short rest if we were trailing 2-1 in the series.

We mentioned earlier it was obvious Julio was just flat out of gas at the end of September, so hopefully this rests provided was just what he needed. A quick look at his numbers with 6 or more days rest this year provide hope as well.

• Only 11 hits allowed on 67 at bats
• 5 Earned Runs over 16 innings pitched
• 19 strikeouts over those 16 innings

Not too mention:  Julio’s history with the Cardinals has been very good as well.

The last piece to this puzzle is now Max Fried. The Braves obviously have a hole in the back of the bullpen now that Chris Martin is out, so I look for Max Fried to get a heavy dose of relief pitching for these next few games.

If the early result is any indication, he will excel in that spot as I thought the biggest mistake of Thursday’s debacle was taking Fried out after 1 dominant inning.

So whether or not this is Julio’s last hurrah as an Atlanta Brave is yet to be seen, but at the very least, he will hopefully get one more crack at it.