Latest Pitching Updates Make Braves Deadline Rumors More Baffling

At no point are the Atlanta Braves looking poised to catch a break on the starting pitching front. Some of the recent updates don’t much of an indication of the contrary.

Manager Walt Weiss said on Friday that the prospects of Spencer Strider returning any time soon are essentially none.

“He’s not closer to being back here,” Weiss said. “Spencer’s not even really on the radar right now.”

When asked if there was a feeling that Strider would be done for the season, Weiss said that it wasn’t an inaccurate one.

At the time that he went on the injured list last month, there was some hope that he could begin a throwing program after four weeks. If he’s not near that in mid-July, waiting until next season to see him again sounds pretty high.

Meanwhile, Spencer Schwellenbach’s status remains unclear, and Martín Pérez remains on the injured list for, at minimum a few more days with a left-arm contusion.

Pérez, of course, is expected to be back, and Schwellenbach pitching this season is on the table. Regardless, it’s nothing short of a mess right now.

AJ Smith-Shawver is on the mend. Maybe JR Ritchie or Owen Murphy establish themselves. None of that is guaranteed to make an impact where the Braves need them to.

With these uncertainties, it only makes a recent report more perplexing.

According to MLB insider Ken Rosenthal, the primary focus for the trade deadline is on offense, with internal options being looked at for the rotation. Acquiring a starter isn’t ruled out, but they're monitoring how internal options look. That makes it clear that they will opt for them instead of making a trade if they can make it happen.

There seems to be a dissonance between what the situation is at hand and what they're hoping to conclude in an evaluation.

Regardless of that status of the pitching staff, not adding extra help would be nothing short of a mistake. A good word to describe this inaction would be malpractice.

With everything that has gone wrong this season, starting pitching should be the front-and-center priority. Some recovering arms could be coming back with all the certainty that it will all go according to plan, and they should still add a rotation arm.

Based on where they currently stand, they can’t only look for what they see as playoff caliber-options. There is nothing wrong with looking for an effective starter who can get this team innings and help bring some stability.

Instability in the rotation is the killer of contention aspirations. Last season is a prime example of what can happen when nothing goes right for months on end. How things have unfolded over the last five weeks provides another glimpse at the situation.

The only rock-solid way to ensure they can stop the bleeding is getting real help.

Getting six innings from a starter has become nearly impossible. It’s a sigh of relief when someone completes five. All it does is put more pressure on a bullpen that is constantly begging for fresh arms.

Any ifs haven’t been a discussion for months. The discussion is who can come in and get this team back on track.

Precedent doesn’t help this team’s case to look internally either. AJ Smith-Shawver was thrown to the wolves for the first game of the Wild Card Series in San Diego. That didn’t end well. Dylan Lee started a World Series, and they didn’t win because of that decision.

Should this team get to Aug. 3 at 6 p.m., and they didn’t add at least one starting pitcher - somebody who is proven - it’s a failure of a deadline. They could add one of the best bats in the game, and that would still be the case.

They will have missed out on making an important upgrade for this season at both opportunities, the other being the offseason.

In the end, there is still a chance the Braves accept the reality of the situation and make the move. But there seems to be a disconnection between what they want to see happen and the reality of the situation. That could be to the team’s detriment.

Add us as a preferred source on Google