Spencer Strider threw a 20-pitch bullpen session on Friday as he works back from the oblique strain that shelved him to begin the season. Braves manager Walt Weiss tells reporters (including Chad Bishop of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) that the righty will probably need a rehab start before he’s ready to return to the big league club.
There’s a decent chance Strider will need to throw a live batting practice session before he heads out on a minor league assignment. That’s usually the intervening step between a bullpen session and rehab stint. Strider seems to be progressing nicely, though, and he looks to be on track to make his season debut within the next couple weeks.
Strider worked 8 1/3 innings over three appearances during Spring Training. The final of those came on March 11 before he tweaked his left oblique. A healthy Strider would have followed Chris Sale in the season-opening rotation. Grant Holmes and Reynaldo López have stepped into the second and third spots, respectively. They’ve pitched well through the first two turns. López’s fastball velocity has ticked back up into the 94 mph range after sitting at worrisome levels in Spring Training.
The final two spots are still questionable. Bryce Elder had a nice season debut against the A’s earlier this week, working six scoreless innings with five punchouts. He’ll go against Michael Soroka tomorrow in the third game of their four-game set in Arizona. The Braves have yet to announce who’ll oppose Brandon Pfaadt in the series finale.
José Suarez took that spot the first time through the rotation. He didn’t escape the fourth inning, allowing four runs on five hits and four walks in a 5-2 loss to the A’s on Tuesday. Martín Pérez followed with 4 1/3 scoreless frames and three strikeouts in a mop-up role.
Neither pitcher has taken the ball since that appearance, and Mark Bowman of MLB.com writes that it likely sets up for the Braves to flip their roles in this turn. They could temporarily tab Pérez as the fifth starter while using Suarez in a low-leverage relief role. Dylan Lee is the only of their current 13 MLB pitchers who has minor league options. Barring intervening injuries, at least one of Pérez, Suarez or Osvaldo Bido will probably be pushed off the roster once Strider returns.
Didier Fuentes is something of a wild card in those pitching plans. The 20-year-old broke camp in long relief and reeled off four innings of one-run ball with four strikeouts in his only appearance. The Braves optioned him after that outing, a prearranged plan to allow him to build as a more traditional starter in the minors.
Fuentes made his first start of the season with Triple-A Gwinnett this evening. He struck out seven while allowing just two baserunners (one hit and walk apiece) across 3 1/3 innings. Fuentes got up to 72 pitches after a 56-pitch outing in his MLB appearance. He’s probably only one or two starts from being built up as a rotation candidate.
The Braves will need to decide how best to use Fuentes without overworking him. The Colombian-born righty tossed 70 innings last year between the minors and a four-start look in the big leagues. He has yet to reach 80 innings in a professional season.
Atlanta isn’t going to fully unleash him for 150+ innings and surely wants to see continued development in his command and secondary pitches. That said, Fuentes has an excellent fastball and has had a dominant few weeks going back to Spring Training, where he struck out 18 of the 43 batters he faced. After looking overmatched when the Braves hurried him to the majors last summer, he seems much better positioned to carve out an MLB role this year.
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